“Driving force is the overall tendency of a process to occur.” Comment on, the statement.

The overall tendency of a process to occur can be expressed on the resultant of two tendencies namely:
(i) the tendency to acquire a state of minimum energy, and
(ii) the tendency to acquire a state of maximum randomness or disorder.
The overall tendency of a process to take place by itself is called the driving force.
It should be noted that:
(i) the two tendencies act independent of each other,
(ii) the two tendencies may work in the same direction or opposite direction in a process and
(iii) the driving force is the resultant of the magnitude of the two tendencies. When the two tendencies act in the opposite direction, the tendency with the greater magnitude determines whether the process is feasible or not. For example,
(a) Evaporation of water. Evaporation of water is endothermic, therefore, energy factor opposes the process. But it is favoured by randomness factor.

Since the process is known to take place, randomness factor must be greater than energy factor.
(b) The reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to form water. It is an exothermic reaction, therefore, favours the process, but randomness factor opposes the reaction.

As the reaction takes place, the energy factor must be greater than the randomness factor.