"The legacy of the Debye-Huckel equation for electrolyte solutions.
100 years of stories, facts, myths and lies - how should we proceed ?"
Due to the Corona situation the seminar will be held virtually.
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e-mail to Christian Ove Carlsson cc@kt.dtu.dk
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Abstract
Electrolyte solutions are present almost everywhere, in numerous applications in chemical, biochemical, geochemical, petroleum engineering as well as in as diverse disciplines as geology and biology and medicine.
Almost 100 years ago (1923), Peter Debye and Erich Hückel have published a 20-page long paper (originally in German) entitled "On the theory of electrolytes. I. Freezing point depression and related phenomena". This single manuscript, adopting the (then) pioneering concept (by Bjerrum) of complete dissociation of strong electrolytes, has pioneered the field of electrolyte thermodynamics. Debye received the Nobel prize in 1936. The Debye-Hückel theory has since 1923 been cited thousands of times (and mentioned even more without any citation), derived and interpretated in numerous ways, approximated, extended, generalized, incorporated in other "more general" electrolyte models, compared to more "modern" approaches (like the mean-spherical approximation), called various things and re-baptized in many names (e.g. Debye-Hückel limiting law, extended law, etc), used and misused in so many ways and so many times, that I am not sure we can find it with any other model.
McQuarie wrote in 1976 in his famous book about Statistical Mechanics "in spite of the great success of the Debye-Hückel theory, when it was originally proposed its range of validity was not at all clear"
As if it is now, I would add!
The story of the Debye-Hückel theory was and is under extreme debate with many very controversial aspects.
After all these, we are left with numerous questions: What is really the Debye-Hückel equation/theory (and what is not), what can be done with it, what is true about the model and what is not, what do we know for sure about the model and what we don't and most importantly of all, what still remains to be discussed. How should we proceed ?
We will attempt in this lecture to provide some answers.
References
P. Debye, E. Hückel, 1923. On the theory of electrolytes. I. Freezing point depression and related phenomena.Physikalische Zeitschrift,24(9), 185-206.
G.M.Kontogeorgis, B. Maribo-Mogensen, K. Thomsen, 2018. The Debye-Hückel theory and its importance in modeling electrolyte solutions.Fluid Phase Equilibria, 462, 130-152