ON THE HYDRATED ELECTRON AS A STRUCTURE-BREAKING ION

It was recently concluded that hydrated electrons must be enormously effective "structure-breaking" ions, based on a redetermination of the entropy of solvation. The basis for this interpretation was compromised by the use of classical statistical mechanics for the quantum particle. We present here a revised interpretation of the hydration entropy and a new calculation of the free energy of transfer from H-2O to D2O (DELTA-G(trnfr) = + 1.3 +/- 1.1 kJ/mol). Both thermodynamic quantities support the previous conclusion that electrons are effective structure-breaking ions.