The change in Gibbs free energy is the part of the enthalpy change of a reaction that is used to do work on the surrounding. In other words, is the maximum amount of work a reaction can do on the surroundings, i.e. . If , then the surrounding must do work on system.

The value of change in Gibbs free energy () for a certain reaction indicates whether a reaction is product favored () or reactant favored ().

under known non-standard conditions can be calculated from standard values: (mnemonic: AGAHSTAS), where is the standard Gibbs free energy change, is the ideal gas constant (), and is the temperature.