Can We Intuitively Tune Electrochemical Reactions by Changing Electrolyte Species?

Discovering new electrolytes is critical to enabling various next-generation batteries. Ideally, the electrolyte is responsible for two functions: transporting ions from one electrode to another and defining charge transfer reactions at the electrode-electrolyte interface (for a given choice of electrodes). While past studies have helped us develop a fair intuition for tuning ion transport by changing electrolyte species, our intuition for electrochemical reactions is lacking. By visiting representative literature, we herein discuss the present understanding of the connection between electrolyte species and corresponding electrochemical reactions as well as unanswered scientific questions.