Strengths, ionic, Debye-Huckel

An equation for estimating how the activity coefficient of an ion in dilute solutions is influenced by ionic strength. See Debye-Huckel treatment... 

Provided the ionic strength is not too high, this equation is obeyed as well as (but no better than) the Debye-Huckel equation for activity coefficients. One can expect deviations at higher ionic strength, and they are in general more serious the higher... 

It then also follows that the rate constant for a first-order reaction, whether or not the solvent is involved, is also independent of ionic strength. This statement is true at ionic strengths low enough for the Debye-Huckel equation to hold. At higher ionic strengths, predictions cannot be made about reactions of any order because all of the kinetic effects can be expected to show chemical specificity. 

These representations offer the advantage that one need not argue which of the reagents carries OH or Cl into the transition state. Since that is usually not known, this notation sidesteps the issue. From the Brpnsted-Debye-Huckel equation, we recognize that the concentration of each transition state (and therefore the reaction rate) will vary with ionic strength in proportion to the values of K for the given equation. For the first term we have... 

In fact, the symbol Ic should be used, as the molality ionic strength Im can be defined analogously in dilute aqueous solutions, however, values of c and m, and thus also Ic and Im, become identical.) Equation (1.1.21) was later derived theoretically and is called the Debye-Huckel limiting law. It will be discussed in greater detail in Section 1.3.1. 

At moderate ionic strengths a considerable improvement is effected by subtracting a term bl from the Debye-Huckel expression b is an adjustable parameter which is 0.2 for water at 25°C. Table 8.4 gives the values of the ionic activity coefficients (for z, from 1 to 6) with a taken to be 4.6A. 

Variable di in Equation 8.2 is the ion size parameter. In practice, this value is determined by fitting the Debye-Huckel equation to experimental data. Variables A and B are functions of temperature, and I is the solution ionic strength. At 25 °C, given I in molal units and taking a, in A, the value of A is 0.5092, and B is 0.3283. 

As can be seen in Figure 8.1, the Davies equation does not decrease monotoni-cally with ionic strength, as the Debye-Huckel equation does. Beginning at ionic strengths of about 0.1 molal, it deviates above the Debye-Huckel function and at about 0.5 molal starts to increase in value. The Davies equation is reasonably accurate to an ionic strength of about 0.3 or 0.5 molal. 

At low ionic strengths, the V7 term in the denominator becomes negligible, so (1 + i>V7) tends to unity, yielding the limiting Debye-Huckel law. 

Debye-Huckel parameter H = Henry s constant for molecular solute I = ionic strength = o.5 K = equilibrium constant m = molality, mole kg-1 P = pressure, Pa R = gas constant, J mol K T = temperature, K 3 ]... 

The statistical thermodynamic approach of Pitzer (14), involving specific interaction terms on the basis of the kinetic core effect, has provided coefficients which are a function of the ionic strength. The coefficients, as the stoichiometric association constants in our ion-pairing model, are obtained empirically in simple solutions and are then used to predict the activity coefficients in complex solutions. The Pitzer approach uses, however, a first term akin to the Debye-Huckel one to represent nonspecific effects at all concentrations. This weakens somewhat its theoretical foundation. 

Various attempts have been made to increase the valid range of the Debye- Huckel equation to regions of high ionic strength by the use of empirically fitted parameters. Several of these equations are listed in table I. 

An important series of papers by Professor Pitzer and colleagues (26, 27, 28, 29), beginning in 1912, has laid the ground work for what appears to be the "most comprehensive and theoretically founded treatment to date. This treatment is based on the ion interaction model using the Debye-Huckel ion distribution and establishes the concept that the effect of short range forces, that is the second virial coefficient, should also depend on the ionic strength. Interaction parameters for a large number of electrolytes have been determined. 

Marshall s extensive review (16) concentrates mainly on conductance and solubility studies of simple (non-transition metal) electrolytes and the application of extended Debye-Huckel equations in describing the ionic strength dependence of equilibrium constants. The conductance studies covered conditions to 4 kbar and 800 C while the solubility studies were mostly at SVP up to 350 C. In the latter studies above 300°C deviations from Debye-Huckel behaviour were found. This is not surprising since the Debye-Huckel theory treats the solvent as incompressible and, as seen in Fig. 3, water rapidly becomes more compressible above 300 C. Until a theory which accounts for electrostriction in a compressible fluid becomes available, extrapolation to infinite dilution at temperatures much above 300 C must be considered untrustworthy. Since water becomes infinitely compressible at the critical point, the standard entropy of an ion becomes infinitely negative, so that the concept of a standard ionic free energy becomes meaningless. 

For solutions that are more concentrated (i.e. for ionic strengths in the range 10 < I (mol dm ) < 10 ), we employ the Debye-Huckel extended law as follows ... 

Strategy. We will assume that the only solutes present are ZnS04 and H2SO4, and first calculate the ionic strength of the solution. (For the purposes of this calculation, we can safely assume that the amounts of zinc sulfate are negligible when compared with the amounts of sulfuric acid.) We will then calculate y for the zinc cation from I (and, for simplicity, obtain y from the Debye-Huckel limiting law). 

Sulfuric acid is a 2 1 electrolyte, and so (by using the data in Table 3.1) the ionic strengthlis three times the concentration, i.e.l = 0.03 moldm f Next, from the Debye-Huckel extended law equation (3.15), we can obtain the mean ionic activity coefficient y as follows ... 

While this relationship is simple, it introduces more errors because the activity coefficient (or more normally, the mean ionic activity coefficient y ) is wholly unknown. While y can sometimes be calculated (e.g. via the Debye-Huckel relationships described in Section 3.4), such calculated values often differ quite significantly from experimental values, particularly when working at higher ionic strengths. In addition, ionic strength adjusters and TISABs are recommended in conjunction with calibration curves. 

The activity a and concentration c are related by a = (c/c ) x y (equation (3.12)), where y is the mean ionic activity coefficient, itself a function of the ionic strength /. Approximate values of y can be calculated for solution-phase analytes by using the Debye-Huckel relationships (equations (3.14) and (3.15)). The change of y with ionic strength can be a major cause of error in electroanalytical measurements, so it is advisable to buffer the ionic strength (preferably at a high value), e.g. with a total ionic strength adjustment buffer (TISAB). 

Electrostatic and statistical mechanics theories were used by Debye and Hiickel to deduce an expression for the mean ionic activity (and osmotic) coefficient of a dilute electrolyte solution. Empirical extensions have subsequently been applied to the Debye-Huckel approximation so that the expression remains approximately valid up to molal concentrations of 0.5 m (actually, to ionic strengths of about 0.5 mol L ). The expression that is often used for a solution of a single aqueous 1 1, 2 1, or 1 2 electrolyte is... 

Taking ionic strength into consideration, the modified dissociation constant pK may be calculated by the Debye-Huckel relationship ... 

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