Ionic motion nearly free ions

This notion of occasional ion hops, apparently at random, forms the basis of random walk theory which is widely used to provide a semi-quantitative analysis or description of ionic conductivity (Goodenough, 1983 see Chapter 3 for a more detailed treatment of conduction). There is very little evidence in most solid electrolytes that the ions are instead able to move around without thermal activation in a true liquid-like motion. Nor is there much evidence of a free-ion state in which a particular ion can be activated to a state in which it is completely free to move, i.e. there appears to be no ionic equivalent of free or nearly free electron motion. 

FIGURE 5.1 Electric double layer in the vicinity of an adsorption layer of ionic surfactant, (a) The diffuse layer contains free ions involved in Brownian motion, whereas the Stem layer consists of adsorbed (bonnd) counterions, (b) Near the charged snrface there is an accnmnlation of counterions and a depletion of coions. 

The first type of relaxation processes reflects characteristics inherent to the dynamics of single droplet components. The collective motions of the surfactant molecule head groups at the interface with the water phase can also contribute to relaxations of this type. This type can also be related to various components of the system containing active dipole groups, such as cosurfactant, bound, and free water. The bound water is located near the interface, while free water, located more than a few molecule diameters away from the interface, is hardly influenced by the polar or ion groups. For ionic microemulsions, the relaxation contributions of this type are expected to be related to the various processes associated with the movement of ions and/ or surfactant counterions relative to the droplets and their organized clusters and interfaces [113,146]. 

---