THE FREE ENERGIES OF FORMATION OF AQUEOUS d-ALANINE, I-ASPARTIC ACID, AND d-GLUTAMIC ACID BY HENRY BORSOOK

The employment of thermodynamics in biochemistry has been restricted, until recently, to the use of first law data. In the last few years a beginning has been made in the application of the second law; i.e., of free energy data (1, 2). The development of this field is limited by the paucity of available free energy data. We have therefore undertaken the systematic determination of the free energies of formation of compounds which may be interesting in biochemistry or physiology. At the outset the query is met, of course, as to the universal validity of the second law of thermodynamics in biological systems. We shall deal with the general question in future publications. For the present it is profitable to assume that organisms obey the second law of thermodynamics as do macroscopic systems. We shall assume, therefore, that the theoretical maximum amount of work derivable from any process is given by the equation’ WR = -AF + A(PV) (1)