New Global Communication Process in Thermodynamics: Impact on Quality of Published Experimental Data

Published

October 11, 2006

Author(s)

Michael D. Frenkel, Robert D. Chirico, Vladimir Diky, Chris D. Muzny, Qian Dong, K N. Marsh, John H. Dymond, William A. Wakeham, Stephen E. Stein, Erich Koenigsberger, Anthony R. Goodwin, Joe W. Magee, Michiel Thijssen, William M. Haynes, Suphat Watanasiri, Marco Satyro, Martin Schmidt, Andrew I. Johns, Gary R. Hardin

Abstract

Thermodynamic data often represent a key resource in the search for new relationships between properties of chemical systems that constitutes the basis of the scientific discovery process. In addition, thermodynamic information is critical for development and improvement of all chemical process technologies. Historically, peer-reviewed journals are the major source of this information obtained by experimental measurement or prediction. Technological advances in measurement science have propelled enormous growth in the scale of published thermodynamic data (almost doubling every 10 years). This expansion has created new challenges in data validation at all stages of the data delivery process. At the peer-review stage, problems in data validation have led, in many instances, to publication of data that are grossly erroneous and, at times, inconsistent with the fundamental laws of nature. This article describes a new global data communication process in thermodynamics and its impact in addressing these challenges, as well as in streamlining the delivery of the thermodynamic data from ?data producers? to ?data users?. We believe that the prolific growth of scientific data in numerous and diverse fields outside thermodynamics, together with the demonstrated effectiveness and versatility of the process described in this article, will foster development of such processes in other scientific fields.

Citation

Nature

Pub Type

Journals

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Citation

Frenkel, M. , Chirico, R. , Diky, V. , Muzny, C. , Dong, Q. , Marsh, K. , Dymond, J. , Wakeham, W. , Stein, S. , Koenigsberger, E. , Goodwin, A. , Magee, J. , Thijssen, M. , Haynes, W. , Watanasiri, S. , Satyro, M. , Schmidt, M. , Johns, A. and Hardin, G. (2006), New Global Communication Process in Thermodynamics: Impact on Quality of Published Experimental Data, Nature, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=50328 (Accessed October 22, 2025)