“This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Do, U. P., Seland, F. & Johannessen, E. A. (2018). The real area of nanoporous catalytic surfaces of gold and palladium in aqueous solutions. 165(5), H219-H228. The final authenticated version is available online at: doi: http://dx.doi.org10.1149/2.0341805jes