The surfaces of Zr-Ti hydrogen storage alloys are modified with methods such as chemical plating of nickel or cobalt, mechanical mixture, ball grinding and so on. XRD shows that the alloy has the trend to form micro-crystals with the content of coating nickel increasing, and long grinding time leads to dispersion of diffraction peaks of alloys. When the discharge current density is 60mA.g-1, the initial capacity of the alloy electrode plated Ni 15wt% is 130 mAh.g-1 more than that of untreated alloy. The alloy is activated absolutely after 6 cycles ~8 cycles, and the max discharge capacity can reach 400 mAh.g-1. The discharge capacity of alloy electrode with 5% Co can be up to 390 mAh.g-1. Anti-discharge ability increases with the percentage of Ni plated. The activation behavior of hydrogen storage alloys is also improved by ball grinding, and the max discharge capacity can reach 450 mAh.g-1. Mechanical mixture can only increase initial capacity without any improvement of max discharge capacity.