If you look at the model for the formulation of the periodic table, it is very easy to understand the role of electric potential ( parking function/potential) nature has chosen K and Na they are the most abundant and have very high solubility function. Being in the same group they don't contradict each other. Their buildup at membrane interface and opposite mobility favour the type of phenomenon seen in thunderstorm 

The Sodium-potassium pump (an antiport) pumps Na+ and K+ ions at uneven rates across the plasma membranes (3 Na+ for every 2 K+).  This results in an electrical charge across the plasma membrane, and this voltage difference serve a variety of purposes in different cells.

Thee charge density K:Na (1.15 for the protons and 1.2 for the electron) the transfer pulse is 95959595...without end. This can be interpreted severally depending on the field of study 

Some of us think life evolved in an environment high in potassium ions. Some of us think life evolved in the ocean, which has 40x more Na+ than K+. I belong to the first group

Well, some scientists suggested that when protocell first formed billion years ago, the ocean water had pretty different Na+/ K+ concentration. (presumably much more potassium than today)

I work on the origin of life, Rumman Uz Zaman so I'd be interested in knowing who those scientists are, because I haven't heard this. Thanks for your Recommendation

Helen Hansma

1. Calcification in cyanobacterial biofilms of alkaline salt lakes By GERNOT ARP, ANDREAS REIMER AND JOACHIM REITNER (1999)

2) The Archean atmosphere By David C. Catling and Kevin J. Zahnle. (2020)

3) The Paleochemistry of the Body Fluids and Tissues. By A. B. Macallum (1926)

4) The role of sodium ions as a stimulus for the evolution of cells and multicellular animals. By Yu. V. Natochin, (2005)

Thanks Rumman Uz Zaman - you must know Paul Bracher.

No K+ or potassium in that article. Just 2 'sodium,' as sodium carbonate.

1. not as early in life as I'd like:

Korolev, N. (2021). How potassium came to be the dominant biological

cation: of metabolism, chemiosmosis, and cation selectivity since the

beginnings of life. BioEssays, 43, e2000108.

2. brief and meager:

DOI: 10.1002/bies.202000302

Origin of the roles of potassium in biology

3. papers in 2009-'present' in http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~hhansma/HGHpublications.htm

4. https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202009.0409/v2

5. Mulkidjanian's 2012 PNAS paper is the big one, and some of his newer papers

6. JACS: Bond Energies and Attachments Sites of Sodium and Potassium

Cations to DNA and RNA Nucleic Acid Bases in the Gas Phase

7. google searches for 'dna sodium potassium' etc etc

8. Why K+: Danchin…frozen accident? ['why nature chose potassium']