Chemical approach for enhancing electrocatalytic activity of electrode materials for hydrogen evolution: from pure metals to complex electrocatalytic systems

Abstract

Fundamental principles of electrocatalytic activity of pure metal for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are given, whereat the most active pure me-tals are the platinum group ones with electronic configuration d8 (Pt, Pd and Ni). These principles are solid basis in direction of chemical enhance-ment of intrinsic catalytic activity for HER. In this context, hypo-hyper d approach interpreted of Jakšić, based on Brewer valence-bond theory has been shown as the most effective one. The most active hypo-hyper d intermetallic compounds are that with average electronic configuration of d8, especially extra-stable Laves phases of high sym-metry.