Overpotential

Overpotential is like trying to lift a heavy toy, but it's much too heavy for you to lift. Your muscles work really hard to try to lift it, but you just can't do it.

In chemical terms, overpotential is the extra energy that you need to put into a battery or a chemical reaction to make it happen. Imagine that you have two chemicals that really want to react with each other, like sodium and chlorine. When they react, they release energy that can be used to power things like electronic devices.

But sometimes, even though the chemicals want to react, they need some extra energy to get started. That extra energy is called overpotential. It's like pushing a ball up a hill before it can roll down and release its energy.

Overpotential is important to understand because it affects how efficiently batteries can store and release energy. If a battery needs a lot of overpotential to get started, it might not be very good at storing energy. Scientists are working on developing new batteries that can overcome the problem of overpotential and store energy more efficiently.