Fundamentals

This chapter concerns about the fundamentals of thermodynamics and its concepts, making a primary focus on energy and exergy points of views. Thermodynamics is, of course, crucial to understand, apply, and improve energy systems and applications, such as power generation and desalination. Also, the basic concepts, units, dimensions, and properties are defined and explained. For further analysis, the concepts of thermodynamics are presented with details and step-by-step approaches. The balance equations are also presented for the mass, energy, entropy, and exergy and are expressed for different types of energy system components. In order to apply the knowledge, an illustrative example is presented. This chapter forms the fundamental knowledge about energy systems in general and power generation and desalination applications in particular.