Abstract
Looking for the answer to the title question a number of oversimplifications of the Born model of ion hydration are discussed. They involved: ionic radius, dielectric saturation, structure of water molecules around ions and the nature of ion-water interactions. On the basis of recent literature the last factor-pure electrostatic interactions of alkali metal cations with water molecules but hydrogen bonding of halide anions-has been found to decide on the minimum energy of interactions, the charge transferred between interacting species in equilibrium and the distance between them. Thus, different nature of interactions for cations and anions explains difference in their hydration heats as well as the observation that solvent-solvent interactions in hydrogen bond donor solvents give the important contribution to solvation heats only for anions.