Calculation of Standard Thermodynamic Properties of Aqueous Electrolytes and Non-Electrolytes

Thermodynamic modeling is important for understanding and predicting phase and chemical equilibria in industrial and natural aqueous systems at elevated temperatures and pressures. Such systems contain a variety of organic and inorganic solutes ranging from apolar nonelectrolytes to strong electrolytes; temperature and pressure strongly affect speciation of solutes that are encountered in molecular or ionic forms, or as ion pairs or complexes. Properties related to the Gibbs energy, such as thermodynamic equilibrium constants of hydrothermal reactions and activity coefficients of aqueous species, are required for practical use by geologists, power-cycle chemists and process engineers. Derivative properties (enthalpy, heat capacity and volume), which can be obtained from calorimetric and volumetric experiments, are useful in extrapolations when calculating the Gibbs energy at conditions remote from ambient. They also sensitively indicate evolution in molecular interactions with changing temperature and pressure. In this context, models with a sound theoretical basis are indispensable, describing with a limited number of adjustable parameters all thermodynamic functions of an aqueous system over a wide range of temperature and pressure.