The relationships between the electrode surface structure or composition and the apparent catalytic activity are usually the main research topics in the studies of electrocatalysis. However, recent experimental results verified that the electrocatalytic activity can be significantly influenced by electrolyte components Aqueous solutions including alkalimetal cations have been widely used in many electrocatalytic reactions toward lots of small molecules, in particular, influence of the alkali metal cations on the activity as well as selectivity has been carefully examined among them. For example,
in studies of electrocatalytic fuel cell reactions on platinum,Markovic et al. demonstrated that the activities of the oxygen reduction reaction, the hydrogen oxidation reaction, and the oxidation of methanol decreased from CsOH to LiOH(Cs+ N K+ N Na+N N Li+);this phenomenon was rationalized in terms of different non-covalent force between M+(H2O)x and PtOH at electrode interface