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In dilute solutions, long-range electrical interactions between ions dominate, and the activity coefficient can be estimated from a determination of the electrical contribution alone. The chemical potential is equal to the reversible work of transferring 1 mol of the species to a large volume of the solution at constant temperature and pressure. The nonideal portion…

The accuracy of our expression for cell potential can be increased by including the full activity corrections, rather than the approximations used earlier. The complexity of the calculations, however, increases significantly. The treatment below assumes that the reader has been exposed to the concepts of activity and fugacity. If these are new to you, you…

The previous section described a potential difference between a surface and the adjacent solution. This potential difference is due to unbalanced charge in solution as a result of charge on a surface or on an ion. Both of these situations (surface and ion) have been described in the literature using very similar approaches, and the…

In this chapter, we have shown how to calculate the thermodynamic potential and the relationship between this equilibrium value and the change in the Gibbs energy for the full-cell reaction. We have also referred to this potential as an equilibrium potential. Clearly, however, the full-cell reaction is not in equilibrium, which would mean that ΔGRx = 0.…

The potential scale in Appendix A is based on the SHE. This scale is arbitrary, and by convention is taken to be zero at standard state as mentioned previously. For experimental work it is generally desirable to have a reference electrode in the system. The purpose of the reference electrode is to provide a known, stable potential…

The Daniell cell that was examined previously presupposed a selectively permeable membrane separator. In practice, simple porous media are often used. In this case, bulk mixing is avoided, but ions are able to move between electrodes. In fact, we often have electrochemical cells where the two electrodes are in solutions of different concentration and/or composition.…

A knowledge of the equilibrium potential for reactions involving a specified set of elements allows us to determine the species that are thermodynamically stable under a particular set of conditions. A common way to present such data in aqueous media is with a Pourbaix diagram, which has been particularly useful for studying corrosion. For example,…

Now that we have a way of determining the equilibrium potential, let’s look at how we can use it. First, the convention we have adopted tells us that when the circuit is closed, a spontaneous reaction will occur. More specifically, a cathodic or reduction reaction takes place on the positive electrode, and an anodic or…