Partial osmotic pressures of ions in electrolyte solutions

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the concept of partial osmotic pressures of ions, revealing they are dependent on wall interactions and electrical structure, challenging their thermodynamic interpretation and implications for ion activity and pH measurement.

Contribution

It demonstrates that partial osmotic pressures are extra-thermodynamic quantities influenced by wall effects, unifying membrane equilibrium with electrical structure considerations.

Findings

Partial osmotic pressures depend on wall interactions.

The analysis unifies Gibbs-Donnan equilibrium with electrical effects.

Implications for ion activity coefficients and pH measurement are discussed.

Abstract

The concept of the partial osmotic pressure of ions in an electrolyte solution is critically examined. In principle these can be defined by introducing a solvent-permeable wall and measuring the force per unit area which can certainly be attributed to individual ions. Here I demonstrate that although the total wall force balances the bulk osmotic pressure as required by mechanical equilibrium, the individual partial osmotic pressures are extra-thermodynamic quantities dependent on the electrical structure at the wall, and as such they resemble attempts to define individual ion activity coefficients. The limiting case where the wall is a barrier to only one species of ion is also considered, and with ions on both sides the classic Gibbs-Donnan membrane equilibrium is recovered thus providing a unifying treatment. The analysis can be extended to illustrate how the electrical state of the bulk is affected by the nature of the walls and the sample handling history, thus supporting the 'Gibbs-Guggenheim uncertainty principle' (the notion that the electrical state is unmeasurable and usually accidentally determined). Since this uncertainty is conferred also onto individual ion activities, it has implications for the current (2002) IUPAC definition of pH.