Exploring how cation entropy influences electric double layer formation and electrochemical reactivity.

Electric double layers are crucial to energy storage and electrocatalytic device performance. While double layer formation originates in electrostatic interactions, electric double layer properties are governed by a balance of both electrostatic and entropic driving forces. Favorable ion-surface electrostatic interactions attract counterions to charged surfaces to compensate, or "screen," potentials, but the confinement of these same ions from a bulk reservoir to the interface incurs an entropic penalty.