Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 227, 2515–2538 (2019)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2019-800133-2

Regular Article

The impact of solvation and dissociation on the transport parameters of liquid electrolytes: continuum modeling and numerical study

Weierstrass Institute, Mohrenstr. 39, 10117 Berlin, Germany

^a e-mail: clemens.guhlke@wias-berlin.de

Received: 23 August 2018
Received in final form: 28 September 2018
Published online: 17 April 2019

Abstract

Electro-thermodynamics provides a consistent framework to derive continuum models for electrochemical systems. For the application to a specific experimental system, the general model must be equipped with two additional ingredients: a free energy model to calculate the chemical potentials and a kinetic model for the kinetic coefficients. Suitable free energy models for liquid electrolytes incorporating ion–solvent interaction, finite ion sizes and solvation already exist and have been validated against experimental measurements. In this work, we focus on the modeling of the mobility coefficients based on Maxwell–Stefan setting and incorporate them into the general electro-thermodynamic framework. Moreover, we discuss the impact of model parameter on conductivity, transference numbers and salt diffusion coefficient. In particular, the focus is set on the solvation of ions and incomplete dissociation of a non-dilute electrolyte.