under the conditions we are exposing the cathode to particularly preferred cathodes are platinum or platinized graphite cathodes the anode 4 begins with a substrate 5 which again can be any anode suitable for use in water electrolysis under the conditions we are exposing the anode to particularly preferred substrates for the anode are materials such as tin oxides particularly indium tin oxide or fluorine tin oxide we cause electrolytic film deposition of our catalyst by operating the fig1 device using the aforesaid electrolytic solution at about 1 48 volts e g 1 33 volts to 1 58 volts once the anode has been coated with our catalyst it is no longer critical that the electrolyte solution contain both the cobalt or fluoride it could continue to be operated with fluoride fig2 depicts the results of cyclic voltammetry scans of an indium tin oxide substrate anode in 0 1 m kf electrolyte with and without 1 mm coso 4 at ph 5 the vertical axis is the log current density the horizontal axis is voltage in the presence of cobalt ions 11 there was an abrupt production of catalytic current as the voltage is scanned back there was a broad cathodic peak centered at e p c 1 07 v subsequent to electrodeposition we ran the fig3 experiments continued controlled potential cpe electrolysis at 600s 1 48 v in 0 1 m fluoride at ph 5 with 1 mm coso 4 and following a subsequent 600 s cpe at 1 48 v in cobalt containing buffer led to deposition of a film of material that showed increased catalytic current on subsequent cyclic voltammetric scans these 13 experiments showed an anodic wave at u02dc 1 2 v that blended into the catalytic current a subsequent cyclic voltammetric scan.