  We study the surface tension of electrolyte solutions at the air/water and
oil/water interfaces. Employing field-theoretical methods and considering
short-range interactions of anions with the surface, we expand the Helmholtz
free energy to first-order in a loop expansion and calculate the excess surface
tension. Our approach is self-consistent and yields an analytical prediction
that reunites the Onsager-Samaras pioneering result (which does not agree with
experimental data), with the ionic specificity of the Hofmeister series. We
obtain analytically the surface-tension dependence on the ionic strength, ionic
size and ion-surface interaction, and show consequently that the
Onsager-Samaras result is consistent with the one-loop correction beyond the
mean-field result. Our theory fits well a wide range of concentrations for
different salts using one fit parameter, reproducing the reverse Hofmeister
series for anions at the air/water and oil/water interfaces.10.1029
