Gibbs free energy

Okay, so imagine you have a really cool toy train that can move all by itself without any help from you. It's always running, always moving. But sometimes, you might notice that the train slows down or stops completely. That's because it needs energy to keep moving.

Now, let's talk about something called Gibbs free energy. This is a way to measure how much energy a chemical reaction has or needs. Just like your toy train needs energy to keep moving, chemicals need energy to start reacting and to keep reacting. The energy that a chemical reaction needs or has is called Gibbs free energy.

So, imagine you have two chemicals that are just sitting there. They don't do anything special on their own. But if you mix them together, they might react and make something new. The Gibbs free energy of that reaction tells you whether or not the reaction will happen on its own, without any extra energy added in.

It's kind of like if you wanted to push your toy train up a hill. You need to add extra energy to make it move up the hill. But once it gets to the top, it can roll down all by itself without any extra energy needed. The Gibbs free energy is like the energy needed to push the train up the hill.

So, with chemicals, if the Gibbs free energy is negative, that means the reaction will happen on its own without any added energy. If it's positive, that means you need to add energy to make it happen.

Overall, Gibbs free energy helps scientists understand how reactions work and what kind of energy they need or produce.