This paper describes the effects of treating the alloy powder of an electrode with 6 M KOH solution containing y M KBH4 (y = 0.0, 0.005, 0.01, 0.02 and 0.03) on the kinetic properties of the electrode, including high rate dischargeablilty HRD, exchange current density I-0, symmetry factor beta, limiting current density I-L, diffusion coefficient of hydrogen in the alpha-phase D-alpha, and electrochemical polarization eta(e) and concentration polarization eta(c). The results show that the kinetic parameters HRD, I-0, I-L and D-alpha increase markedly with the increase in the concentration of KBH4, the eta(e) and eta(c) decrease rapidly with increasing concentration of KBH4, but the symmetry factor beta does not change.