Authors: Paola Fisicaro Enzo Ferrara Enrico Prenesti Silvia Berto
Publish Date: 2005/09/02
Volume: 383, Issue: 2, Pages: 341-348
Abstract
Despite recent efforts devoted to assessing both the theoretical rationale and the experimental strategy for assignment of primary pH values these have not yet been accomplished satisfactorily Traceability and comparability of pH values are achieved only within the constraints of internationally accepted conventions and predefined conditions that cannot account for all possible situations when pH is measured Critical parameters to be defined are in particular the activity coefficients γ i of the ionic species involved in the equilibrium with the hydrogen ions in the solution which are usually estimated with the approximation typical of the Debye–Hückel theoretical model For this paper primary Harned cell measurements traceable to the SI system of the pH of a phosphate buffer have been considered and the results have been compared with secondary glass electrode measurements obtained by considering either the activity paH or concentration pcH scale of the hydrogen ions With conventional approaches based on measurements related to activity or concentration scale discrepancies emerge which have been assigned to incomplete inferences of γ i arising from chemical features of the solution It is shown that fitting and comparable paH and pcH results are attainable if evaluation of γ i is performed using better estimates of the ionic strength according to an enhanced application of the Debye–Hückel theory
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