Local inversion of the mean electrostatic potential, maximum charge reversal, and capacitive compactness of concentrated 1:1 salts: The crucial role of the ionic excluded volume and ion correlations Article uri icon

abstract

  • Recent restricted primitive model Monte Carlo simulations (Takamichi Terao, Mol. Phys. 119, e1831634, 2020) have suggested the possibility of observing the phenomenon of charge inversion in highly concentrated monovalent salts, in which ionic specific adsorption is absent. By using the non-linear Poisson-Boltzmann equation supplemented by a hard-spheres contribution, integral equations theory, and Monte Carlo simulations, the associated mean electrostatic potential, maximum charge reversal and capacitive compactness are studied here. The main finding of this study is the observation of a local inversion of the mean electrostatic potential in a region bounded by one and three ionic radii measured from the macroions%27s surface. If the zeta potential is located in this region, the above result suggests the possibility of observing an inversion of the macroion%27s electrophoretic mobility, driven by 1:1 aqueous electrolytes in the absence of ionic specific adsorption. On the other hand, the maximum charge reversal and the capacitive compactness increases and decreases montonically, respectively, as a function of the ionic volume fraction when the salt concentration and/or the ionic size of the aqueous electrolytes increase. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

publication date

  • 2022-01-01