▎ 摘　　要

For widespread use of renewable energy such as water splitting, the development of electrocatalysts on a large-scale at a low-cost that remains safe and environmentally friendly is still a great challenge. Here, we report the use of alpha-aminoalkyl radicals in a one-step procedure that synthesizes transition metal nanoparticle-graphene composites via photo reduction. The organic photocatalyst 2-methyl-1-[4-(methylthio)phenyl]-2-(morpholinyl)phenyl]-1-butanone (I-907) undergoes Norrish Type I photocleavage to generate strongly reducing alpha-aminoalkyl radicals, when exposed to UVA. For the first time, we demonstrate its ability to reduce graphene oxide (GO) and successfully synthesize Co3O4 nanoparticles decorated on graphene (Co3O4NP-rGO). The alpha-aminoalkyl radicals simultaneously reduce GO and Co2+ salts, which nucleates on the negatively charged GO sheets and grows to form nanoparticles. The resulting Co3O4NP-rGO showed decent catalytic activity and stability for the oxygen evolution reaction. Our work introduces a new and environmentally friendly synthesis procedure that can be used to produce earth abundant transition metal electrocatalysts.