From Bad Electrochemical Practices to an Environmental and Waste Reducing Approach for the Generation of Active Hydrogen Evolving Electrodes

The electrodeposition of noble metals using corresponding dissolved metal salts represents an interesting process for the improvement of the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) properties of less active substrate materials. The fact that only a small fraction of the dissolved noble metals reaches the substrate represents a serious obstacle to this common procedure. We therefore chose a different path. It was found that the HER activity of Ni42 alloy drastically increased (eta=140mV at j=10mAcm(-2); pH1) when a platinum counter electrode was used during polarization experiments in acid. This improvement was caused by a platinum transfer from the platinum anode to the steel cathode, a process which occurred simultaneously to the hydrogen evolution. The negligible accumulation of Pt (26 mu g) in the electrolyte turns this straight-forward transfer procedure into a highly cost-effective, environmentally friendly, and waste reducing approach for the generation of cheap, stable and effective HER electrodes.