Investigation of the Limits of the Linearized Poisson–Boltzmann Equation

Abstract

This work presents a comparison between a numerical solution of the Poisson-Boltzmann equation and the analytical solution of its linearized version through the Debye-Hückel equations considering both size-dissimilar and common ion diameters approaches. In order to verify the limits in which the linearized Poisson-Boltzmann equation is capable to satisfactorily reproduce the nonlinear version of Poisson-Boltzmann, we calculate mean ionic activity coefficients for different types of electrolytes as various temperatures. The divergence between the linearized and full Poisson-Boltzmann equations is higher for lower molalities, and both solutions tend to converge toward higher molalities. For electrolytes of lower valencies (1:1, 1:2, 2:1, and 1:3) and higher distances of closest approach, the full version of the Debye-Hückel equation is capable of representing the activity coefficients with a low divergence from the nonlinear Poisson-Boltzmann. The size-dissimilar full version of Debye-Hückel represents a clear improvement over the extended version that uses only common ion diameters when compared to the numerical solution of the Poisson-Boltzmann equation. We have derived a salt-specific index (Θ) to gradually classify electrolytes in order of increasing influence of nonlinear ion-ion interactions, which differentiate the Debye-Hückel equations from the nonlinear Poisson-Boltzmann equation.