The thermodynamics of electrolyte solutions has been
investigated by many scientists throughout the last century. While
several theories have been presented, the most popular models for
the electrostatic interactions are based on the Debye–Hückel
and mean spherical approximation (MSA) theories. In this paper we
investigate the differences between the Debye–Hückel
and the MSA theories, and comparisons of the numerical results for
the Helmholtz energy and its derivatives with respect to temperature,
volume and composition are presented. The investigation shows that
the nonrestricted primitive MSA theory performs similarly to Debye–Hückel,
despite the differences in the derivation. We furthermore show that
the static permittivity is a key parameter for both models and that
in many cases it completely dominates the results obtained from the
two models. Consequently, we conclude that the simpler Debye–Hückel
theory may be used in connection with electrolyte equations of state
without loss of accuracy.