Enhancing the Activity of Electrode Materials in Hydrogen Economy

¿he subject of this book is to show the approaches to enhance electrocatalytic activity of pure metals. As a main approaches can be distinguished: i) hypo-hyper d-interaction of the catalyst¿s components, ii) synergetic interaction between the catalyst¿s components, explained by ¿d-band center theory¿ and iii) the choice of support material. According to Jak¿i¿¿s hypo-hyper d-concept, the mixture of hyper d- electronic transition metals (good individual catalysts) with hypo d- electronic transition metals or their compounds (poor catalysts) exhibits pronounced synergetic effect of electrocatalytic activity. According to ¿d-band center theory¿, the position of d-band has leading role in determining the affinity of d-metals to adsorption of variety of adsorbates, such as H, O, CO etc. Generally, the support material influence on the catalytic activity through the following characteristics: i) highly developed surface area to provide better dispersion of the nano-scaled catalytic particles; ii) high electric conductivity to provide efficient electron transfer to ions involved in the electrochemical reactions and iii) mechanical and chemical stability.