Electrolyte solutions, activity coefficient definition

It is very often necessary to characterize the redox properties of a given system with unknown activity coefficients in a state far from standard conditions. For this purpose, formal (solution with unit concentrations of all the species appearing in the Nernst equation its value depends on the overall composition of the solution. If the solution also contains additional species that do not appear in the Nernst equation (indifferent electrolyte, buffer components, etc.), their concentrations must be precisely specified in the formal potential data. The formal potential, denoted as E0, is best characterized by an expression in parentheses, giving both the half-cell reaction and the composition of the medium, for example E0,(Zn2+ + 2e = Zn, 10-3M H2S04). 

It has been emphasized repeatedly that the individual activity coefficients cannot be measured experimentally. However, these values are required for a number of purposes, e.g. for calibration of ion-selective electrodes. Thus, a conventional scale of ionic activities must be defined on the basis of suitably selected standards. In addition, this definition must be consistent with the definition of the conventional activity scale for the oxonium ion, i.e. the definition of the practical pH scale. Similarly, the individual scales for the various ions must be mutually consistent, i.e. they must satisfy the relationship between the experimentally measurable mean activity of the electrolyte and the defined activities of the cation and anion in view of Eq. (1.1.11). Thus, by using galvanic cells without transport, e.g. a sodium-ion-selective glass electrode and a Cl -selective electrode in a NaCl solution, a series of (NaCl) is obtained from which the individual ion activity aNa+ is determined on the basis of the Bates-Guggenheim convention for acr (page 37). Table 6.1 lists three such standard solutions, where pNa = -logflNa+, etc. 

For concentrated solutions, the activity coefficient of an electrolyte is conveniently defined as though it were a nonelectrolyte. This is a practical definition for the description of phase equilibria involving electrolytes. This new activity coefficient f. can be related to the mean ionic activity coefficient by equating expressions for the liquid-phase fugacity written in terms of each of the activity coefficients. For any 1-1 electrolyte, the relation is ... 

For solutions of ions, departures from ideality can be large even in quite dilute solutions because of the strong electrostatic attractions or repulsions between the ions. Furthermore, the simple definition of activity coefficient given in Eq. 2.3 fails for electrolytes because we can never measure the activity of, say, a cation Mm+ without anions Xx being present at the same time instead, we usually define a mean ionic activity a and coefficient /y as... 

The reference state of the electrolyte can now be defined in terms of thii equation. We use the infinitely dilute solution of the component in the solvent and let the mean activity coefficient go to unity as the molality or mean molality goes to zero. This definition fixes the standard state of the solute on the basis of Equation (8.184). We find later in this section that it is neither profitable nor convenient to express the chemical potential of the component in terms of its molality and activity. Moreover, we are not able to separate the individual quantities, and /i . Consequently, we arbitrarily define the standard chemical potential of the component by... 

See, for example, Chap. 9 in K. Denbigh, The Principles of Chemical Equilibrium, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981. ThelUPAC recommendation for the symbol to represent rational activity coefficients is yx, which is not used in this book in order to make the distinction between solid solutions and aqueous solutions more evident. In strict chemical thermodynamics, however, all activity coefficients are based on the mole fraction scale, with the definition for aqueous species (Eq. 1.12) actually being a variant that reflects better the ionic nature of electrolyte solutions and the dominant contribution of liquid water to these mixtures. (See, for example, Chap. 2 inR. A. RobinsonandR. H. Stokes,Electrolyte Solutions, Butterworths, London, 1970.)... 

The product 7 + 7- is experimentally measurable. The quantity (7 referred to as the mean molal activity coefficient The mean ionic molality is defined as im+mJ) and is simply m for a univalent-univalent electrolyte. Summarizing these definitions for a nonideal, univalent-univalent solution, where the solute is component 2. 

When the standard and reference states for the exchanger and external solution phases are defined according to the conventional theory of electrolyte solutions, the thermodynamic exchange constant is by definition equal to unity. Therefore from equation 5.23 the observed selectivity in dilute solutions arises from the activity coefficient ratio in the exchanger phase thus ... 

Definition of single ion activity coefficient. For simplicity, only solutions of symmetrical binary univalent electrolytes will be considered here. 

In principle, the conventions used for nonelectrolyte solutions developed in Chap. 11 could be employed for electrolyte solutions which are subject to the condition of electroneutrality. Agreement with experimental data could be obtained by choosing the molecular weight to be some fraction of the formula weight. However, these conventions generally lead to activity coefficients which are rapidly varying functions of composition. In order to avoid this, we formally define chemical potentials and activity coefficients for ionic components. The definition of chemical potentials for ionic components does not have operational significance since their concentrations cannot be varied independently. 

In order to calculate the equOibrium composition of a system consisting of one or more phases in equilibrium with an aqueous solution of electrolytes, a review of the basic thermodynamic functions and the conditions of equilibrium is important, This is particularly true inasmuch as the study of aqueous solutions requires consideration of chemical and/or ionic reactions in the aqueous phase as well as a thermodynamic framework which is, for the most part, quite different from those definitions associated with nonelectrolytes. Therefore, in this section we will review the definition of the basic thermodynamic functions, the partial molar quantities, chemical potentials, conditions of equilibrium, activities, activity coefficients, standard states, and composition scales encountered in describing aqueous solutions. 

Equations (5.6) and (5.7) ignore any possible cation-cation or anion-anion Interaction and any higher order interactions. The activity coefficient of an electrolyte in a multicomponent solution is, by combining equations (5.5), (5.6) and (5.7) and remembering the definition of a mean activity coefficient, equation (2.26) ... 

A more quantitative prediction of activity coefficients can be done for the simplest cases [18]. However, for most electrolytes, beyond salt concentrations of 0.1 M, predictions are a tedious task and often still impossible, although numerous attempts have been made over the past decades [19-21]. This is true all the more when more than one salt is involved, as it is usually the case for practical applications. Ternary salt systems or even multicomponent systems with several salts, other solutes, and solvents are still out of the scope of present theory, at least, when true predictions without adjusted parameters are required. Only data fittings are possible with plausible models and with a certain number of adjustable parameters that do not always have a real physical sense [1, 5, 22-27]. It is also very difficult to calculate the activity coefficients of an electrolyte in the presence of other electrolytes and solutes. Even the definition is difficult, because electrolyte usually dissociate, so that extrathermodynamical ion activity coefficients must be defined. The problem is even more complex when salts are only partially dissociated or when complex equilibriums of gases, solutes, and salts are involved, for example, in the case of CO2 with acids and bases [28, 29]. 

In dealing with an electrolyte solute, we can refer to the solute (a substance) as a whole and to the individual charged ions that result from dissociation. We can apply the same general definitions of chemical potential, activity coefficient, and activity to these different... 

Parametrization of the thermodynamic properties of pure electrolytes has been obtained [18] with use of density-dependent average diameter and dielectric parameter. Both are ways of including effects originating from the solvent, which do not exist in the primitive model. Obviously, they are not equivalent and they can be extracted from basic statistical mechanics arguments it has been shown [19] that, for a given repulsive potential, the equivalent hard core diameters are functions of the density and temperature Adelman has formally shown [20] (Friedman extended his work subsequently [21]) that deviations from pairwise additivity in the potential of average force between ions result in a dielectric parameter that is ion concentration dependent. Lastly, there is experimental evidence [22] for being a function of concentration. There are two important thermodynamic quantities that are commonly used to assess departures from ideality of solutions the osmotic coefficient and activity coefficients. The first coefficient refers to the thermodynamic properties of the solvent while the second one refers to the solute, provided that the reference state is the infinitely dilute solution. These quantities are classic and the reader is referred to other books for their definition [1, 4],... 

The conductance of a pure electrolyte solution is (normally) the sum of two contributions, the conductance of the cations and the conductance of the (equivalent number of) anions. Transport number measurements separate these two effects and enable the individual contributions to be calculated. For this reason they have made a valuable contribution to electrolyte theory. For other properties of electrolytes, such as activities, this separation into ionic contributions is impossible the activity coefficient of an individual ion cannot be measured, a fact which causes difficulties in the definition of pH and similar concepts. 

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