Synthesis of Fe3O4 embedded LIG via laser ablation of PI/Fe(acac)3 film for enhanced electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Hydrogen production via electrocatalytic water splitting is generally considered as an efficient and eco-friendly strategy for energy storage. The exploration of novel electrocatalytic cathode material towards hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) has never ended. Laser induced graphene (LIG), as a cheap and porous material with large surface area, not only can be used as a carrier of active substances for collaborative catalysis towards hydrogen evolution, but also can be directly used as catalytic electrode via heteroatoms doping. We synthesized Fe3O4 embedded LIG via laser ablation of polyimide (PI)/Fe(acac)3 film and tested its HER electrocatalytic performance. An overpotential of 269 mV was obtained under the current density of 10 mA cm−2 with a slight current decay in the 10 h chronoamperometric examination in 1 M KOH electrolyte. This work provides an insight into methods of optimizing electrochemical properties and improving catalytic activity of LIG based materials. The performance of our Fe3O4 embedded LIG demonstrates the potential of LIG based materials as next generation HER electrocatalyst.