The temperature-dependent conductivity originating in a thermally activated process is often described by a simple Arrhenius expression. However, this expression provides a poor description of the data for organic liquid electrolytes and amorphous polymer electrolytes. Here, we write the temperature dependence of the conductivity as an Arrhenius expression and show that the experimentally observed non-Arrhenius behavior is due to the temperature dependence of the dielectric constant contained in the exponential prefactor. Scaling the experimentally measured conductivities to conductivities at a chosen reference temperature leads to a "compensated" Arrhenius equation that provides an excellent description of temperature-dependent conductivities. A plot of the prefactors as a function of the solvent dielectric constant results in a single master curve for each family of solvents. These data suggest that ion transport in these and related systems is governed by a single activated process differing only in the activation energy for each family of solvents. Connection is made to the shift factor used to describe electrical and mechanical relaxation in a wide range of phenomena, suggesting that this scaling procedure might have broad applications.

Self-diffusion coefficients are measured from -5 to 80 degrees C in a series of linear alcohols using pulsed field gradient NMR. The temperature dependence of these data is studied using a compensated Arrhenius formalism that assumes an Arrhenius-like expression for the diffusion coefficient; however, this expression includes a dielectric constant dependence in the exponential prefactor. Scaling temperature-dependent diffusion coefficients to isothermal diffusion coefficients so that the exponential prefactors cancel results in calculated energies of activation E(a). The exponential prefactor is determined by dividing the temperature-dependent diffusion coefficients by the Boltzmann term exp(-E(a)/RT). Plotting the prefactors versus the dielectric constant places the data on a single master curve. This procedure is identical to that previously used to study the temperature dependence of ionic conductivities and dielectric relaxation rate constants. The energies of activation determined from self-diffusion coefficients in the series of alcohols are strikingly similar to those calculated for the same series of alcohols from both dielectric relaxation rate constants and ionic conductivities of dilute electrolytes. The experimental results are described in terms of an activated transport mechanism that is mediated by relaxation of the solution molecules. This microscopic picture of transport is postulated to be common to diffusion, dielectric relaxation, and ionic transport.

Ionic mobility, the thermodynamics of ionic association, and the structure of associated species are studied in solutions of diglyme containing either lithium triflate or tetrabutylammonium triflate. Infrared spectroscopic, PFG NMR, thermodynamic, and crystallographic data suggest that the solute species existing in diglyme-lithium triflate are "free" ions, contact ion pairs, and dimers. Equilibrium constants, S(o), deltaH(o), and deltaG(o) are calculated for processes occurring between these species. In particular, the equilibrium constant, corrected for nonideality using a modified Debye-Hückel expression, is calculated for the dissociation of contact ion pairs into "free" cations and anions. A second equilibrium constant for the formation of dimers from contact ion pairs is also calculated; these constants do not significantly vary with salt concentration up to about 1.3 x 10(-3) mol cm(-3). The measured temperature dependence of equilibrium constants was used to calculate deltaH(o) and deltaS(o) for the two processes. The value of deltaS(o) = -102 J mol(-1) K(-1) for the dissociation of contact ion pairs shows that the large entropy decrease due to cation solvation outweighs the entropy increase due to dissociation of a contact ion pair. Ionic mobilities are calculated in lithium triflate-diglyme solutions using conductivity data in conjunction with information about the nature and concentrations of solute species obtained from IR spectroscopy. Mobilities in tetrabutlyammonium triflate-diglyme solutions are calculated directly from conductivity data. It was concluded that the concentration dependence of the molar conductivity is due in large part to the variation of the ion mobilities with concentration.