Appearance of the term “Electrocatalysis”:
Alexeyev D. On Electrocatalysis // Zhurnal Russkogo Fiziko-Khimicheskogo Obshchestva. 1909. V. 41. P. 1155-1160, in Russian. Translation into English, comments, and information about the author are available in ChemTexts. 2025. V. 11. Article 5. Briefly, Alexeyev considered a sort of mediator electrocatalysis.
Kobosew N.I., Monblanowa W.W. Aktivierende Wirkung von Giften auf die Elektrokatalyse // Acta Physicochim. URSS. 1936. V. 4. P. 395-408. In Russian: Zhurnal Fizicheskoi Khimii. 1936. V. 7. P. 645-654. These authors formulated Electrocatalysis notion two years earlier: Kobosew N.I., Monblanowa W.W. Über den Mechanismus der Elektrodiffusion des Wasserstoffes durch Palladium // Acta Physicochim. URSS. 1934. V. 1. P. 611-650, see at P.616. They proposed to consider “Elektrodiffusion, Elektrookklusion, Elektrokatalyse” instead of usual diffusion, occlusion <intercalation>, and catalysis in case when the adsorbed hydrogen atoms are forcedly (“erzwungenen”) formed in electrochemical step , not by means of usual dissociation of H2 molecule (“naturlische”). This limits their notion to electrocatalytic reactions with adsorbed intermediates. By the way, they cite Alexeyev’s 1924 article on the effect of poisons on H occlusion. About Kobozev and Monblanova.