Aqueous electrolyte solution modelling: Some limitations of the Pitzer equations

To better understand this problem, the ability of the Pitzer equations to represent the physicochemical properties of aqueous solutions has been systematically investigated for exemplar electrolyte systems. Pitzer ion-interaction parameters have been calculated for selected systems by least-squares regression analysis of published solution data for activity coefficients, osmotic coefficients, relative enthalpies, heat capacities, volumes and densities to high temperatures and pressures. Although satisfactory fits can be achieved when the ranges of conditions are carefully chosen and when sufficient data are available to constrain the regression, the fits obtained tend otherwise to be unsatisfactory. The Pitzer equations do not cope well with gaps and other deficiencies in the regressed data. Profound difficulties, poorly recognized hitherto, can also arise because of variation in the sensitivity of the Pitzer functions to values for different physicochemical properties when these are combined. Given the dimensionality of numerous related thermodynamic properties, all changing as functions of composition, temperature and pressure, these problems are difficult to detect, let alone address, especially in multicomponent systems. The growing practice of improving fits simply by adding basis functions (thereby increasing the number of adjustable parameters) should be deprecated because it increases the likelihood of error propagation, introduces subjectivity, makes independent verification difficult and has deleterious implications for both automated data processing and for consistency between thermodynamic models.