2 Surface Thermodynamics of Metal/Solution Interface: the Untapped Resources

Platinum metals electrochemistry is closely associated with electrocatalysis. This wide and highly mobile field is occupied by extremely different types of researchers, who consider electrocatalytic phenomena at various levels, from industrial to atomic. All of them are fighting for one and the same result (roughly, as high as possible activity and stability of the catalyst), but they surely see the events at catalyst/solution interface by different eyes. Some researchers approached electrocatalytic field from the classical electrochemistry side, but a lot of people were involved from other areas of chemistry and physics. This situation is typical for electrochemical material science, with its mounting increase of publications around mainstreams and some risk of a gradual loss of fundamentals. However it is not over yet to remind some of them.