We have studied the system formed by electrically charged particles with an intrinsic electric dipole moment in statistical equilibrium. The feadiug terms of the free energy are obtained. The relevance of these results for the anaiysis of electrolytic systems is discussed.
A strong eIectrolyte solution is usually conceived as being a neutral system of charged particles which move through a uniform medium. On this basis, in the early twenties, Debye and Hiickel [l] obtained the ieading term of the electrolyte activity coefficients at small concentrations. This contribution is essentially determined by the long range behaviour of the interaction.
On the contrary, the next approximations depend crucially on the behaviour of the potential over shorter distances. In fact if one insists on a purely coulombic attraction, the classical partition function becomes meaningless. Since, on physical grounds, it is very unlikely for two ions to get very close, they are idealised as rigid charged spheres of suitable radii [l-4].
The free energy of this model has been approximately evahrted using many different [2,7] devices and the results are nearly the same.