  Continuum solvation methods can provide an accurate and inexpensive embedding
of quantum simulations in liquid or complex dielectric environments.
Notwithstanding a long history and manifold applications to isolated systems in
open boundary conditions, their extension to materials simulations ---
typically entailing periodic-boundary conditions --- is very recent, and
special care is needed to address correctly the electrostatic terms. We discuss
here how periodic-boundary corrections developed for systems in vacuum should
be modified to take into account solvent effects, using as a general framework
the self-consistent continuum solvation model developed within plane-wave
density-functional theory [O. Andreussi et al. J. Chem. Phys. 136, 064102
(2012)]. A comprehensive discussion of real-space and reciprocal-space
corrective approaches is presented, together with an assessment of their
ability to remove electrostatic interactions between periodic replicas.
Numerical results for zero-dimensional and two-dimensional charged systems
highlight the effectiveness of the different suggestions, and underline the
importance of a proper treatement of electrostatic interactions in
first-principles studies of charged systems in solution.
