The advancement of future renewable energy systems demands a new alternative energy source, such as the Hydrogen. Hydrogen is generated through an electrocatalytic reaction, in which water is split into its constituent elements. The aforementioned reaction can be facilitated by the utilisation of electrodes that can be manufactured from a variety of metallic materials. In this context, Nickel is regarded as one of the materials with the most pronounced electrocatalytic properties. In order to further enhance the efficiency rate of the reaction, certain strategies have been employed to modify the electrode surface area, such as increasing the number of active sites by modifying the morphology of the surface.
In this work, Direct Laser Interference Patterning (DLIP) technology is used to enhance the surface area of Ni-based electrodes for hydrogen generation in an alkaline medium. Line-like structures having a spatial period of 5.4 µm are produced on 10 mm x 10 mm electrodes, using a 70 ps pulsed laser beam source (wavelength ʎ= 1064 nm, neoLASE GmbH). The influence of the laser parameters on the resulting surface topography is studied by contact angle measurements with an alkaline solution of NaOH (3 M and 6 M) at 60 °C and 80 °C. Moreover, the activated surface is analysed with electrochemical techniques.