Eur. Phys. J. E (2018) 41: 102
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2018-11713-9

Regular Article

Diffuse double-layer structure in mixed electrolytes considering ions as dielectric spheres

¹ Departamento de Física, Universidad de Jaén, Campus Las Lagunillas, Ed. A-3, 23071, Jaén, Spain
² Departamento de Física, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Av. Independencia 1800, 4000, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina

^* e-mail: jjgarcia@ujaen.es

Received: 27 April 2018
Accepted: 8 August 2018
Published online: 10 September 2018

Abstract

The structure of the diffuse part of the electric double layer at solid-electrolyte solution interfaces is examined using a theoretical model that takes into account the finite ion size by modeling the solution as a suspension of polarizable insulating spheres in water. This formalism is applied to mixed electrolyte solutions using the “Boublik-Mansoori-Carnahan-Starling-Leland” (BMCSL) theory for the steric interactions among ions. It is shown that the ionic size differences have a strong bearing on the diffuse part of the electric double-layer structure of these systems. Moreover, for strong potential values, the different size-related effects become important even for binary electrolyte solutions due to the presence of H⁺ and OH^- ions that are substantially smaller than hydrated ions originated from salt dissociation. The obtained results display some of the qualitative features observed in experiments on aqueous systems that are generally interpreted in terms of totally different mechanisms.