Mercury/mercurou
s sulfate electrode concentration cell
s(with liquid junction) are employed in thi
s study to determinethe formation con
stant
s of aluminum
sulfate complexe
s,with the principal advantage that the change in the free
sulfate concentration i
s mea
sured directly without theneed to know the
standard potential of the electrode.Potentiometric titration
s were conducted at temperature
sof 10, 25, and 50
s/entitie
s/deg.gif">C and ionic
strength
s of approximately0.3, 0.5, and 1.0 molal in aqueou
s solution
s of the inert 1:1electrolyte
sodium trifluoromethane
sulfonate (NaTr).Stoichiometric molal formation quotient
s Q1 and
Q2,re
spectively, for the reaction
s Al
3+(aq) + SO
42-(aq)
s/entitie
s/rlhar2.gif">AlSO
4+(aq) and Al
3+(aq) + 2SO
42-(aq)
s/entitie
s/rlhar2.gif"> Al(SO
4)
2-(aq) weredetermined. The value
s of log
Q1 obtained from thi
swork in NaTr media at ionic
strength
s of 0.3 and 1.0 mol·kg
-1and 50
s/entitie
s/deg.gif">C (1.72 ± 0.08 and 1.35 ± 0.06, re
spectively) arein excellent agreement with the value
s (1.71 ± 0.2 and 1.32± 0.1) determined in NaCl media from the recentpotentiometric
study conducted in the
same laboratoryu
sing a hydrogen electrode concentration cell by Ridleyet al. (Ridley, M. K.; We
solow
ski, D. J.; Palmer, D. A.; Kettler,R. M.
Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 1999,
62, 459-472).The value of log
Q2 (2.05 ± 0.05) in 1.0 mol·kg
-1 from thi
swork i
s smaller than the value reported by Ridley et al.(2.6 ± 0.5) but within the combined experimental error.Empirical i
sothermal equation
s are pre
sented to permitcalculation of the equilibrium quotient
s a
s a function of ionic
strength (0-1 mol·kg
-1), giving log
K1 and log
K2 value
sat 25
s/entitie
s/deg.gif">C and infinite dilution of 3.84 ± 0.12 and 5.58 ± 0.09,re
spectively. The value for log
K1 obtained in thi
s studyat 25
s/entitie
s/deg.gif">C i
s bracketed within experimental uncertainty byvalue
s reported by Kryzhanov
skii et al. (Kryzhanov
skii, M. M.;Volokhov, Y. A.; Pavlov, L. N.; Eremin, N. I.; Mironov, V. E
Zh. Prikl. Khim. 1971,
44, 476-479) and Ni
shide and T
suchiya(Ni
shide, T.; T
suchiya, R.
Bull. Chem. Soc. Jpn. 1965,
38,1398-1400), namely, 3.89 and 3.73, re
spectively. All otherliterature value
s for the fir
st aluminum
sulfate a
ssociationcon
stant are con
siderably lower than the
se re
sult
s, whichi
s al
so true for the
second a
ssociation con
stant, althoughthere are few experimental data available for the latter.Empirical equation
s are al
so pre
sented for calculatingvalue
s of log
Q1 and log
Q2 from 0 to 1 molal ionic
strengthand from 10 to 125
s/entitie
s/deg.gif">C,
spanning the range of mo
stenvironmental condition
s at which the
se reaction
s areimportant.