Overscreening and crowding in electrochemical ionic liquid systems

Ionic liquids (ILs) are promising materials for a wide range of technologies where their interface with an electrified surface is important. For example, ILs are considered as next generation, safe electrolytes in novel battery chemistries. This is due to the fact that many ILs are nonflammable, nontoxic, highly stable over a wide range of temperatures and electric field strengths, and they usually exhibit good ionic conductivity. ILs have relatively unique interfacial properties, being liquids that are entirely composed of ions, which leads to complex electrochemical behavior that is not yet fully understood. This work shows how overscreening and crowding in certain ILs may have a strong effect on their electrochemical performance, and hints at how this can be controlled by choice of chemistry.