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 [1]. 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 [2]. Similar
behaviors have been observed in the electrocatlytic oxidation of carbon
monoxide [3], formate ions [4], ethylene glycol [5], and hydrogen peroxide
[6] on platinum. However, it has been explored that electrocatalytic
activities for the methanol and ethanol oxidation reactions on
Au(111) are independent of the alkali metal cations [7], which is different
from the case of Pt. Moreover, Li et al. found that TiO2-based