(582by) Application of Alginate Film Supported Nano-Silver Catalyst

Silver nanoparticles (AgNP) as promising catalysts have attracted key attention in various chemical reactions due to their high catalytic efficiency. Though homogeneous catalysts owe efficiency for their uniform molecular dispersion in the reaction medium, the disadvantage associated with this dispersion is that, the recovery of the catalysts is challenging and their reuse is questionable. The later one is an essential factor in terms of cost. The strategy of immobilising the active catalyst on a suitable support achieves a harmonious combination of the efficiency of as well as its reusability like that of heterogeneous ones. Metal nanoparticles progress one step farther by showing molecular level activity, which when framed in a suitable support, such as polymer, can act as heterogeneous catalyst. The important factor that attracts the attention for metal nanoparticle is their catalytic property, which is a dramatic contrast between the material in bulk and in nano form. Keeping this in mind, noble metals, Ag which are very active in their nano level, are thought to be synthesized and suitable polymers will be chosen as both stabilizing agent and support for the metal nanoparticles. In this work silver nanoparticle encapsulated with alginate film has been prepared by in-situ chemical reduction method. However alginate acts both as reducing agent as well as stabilizing agent. The successful formation of silver nanoparticles in alginate matrix has been validated by transmission electron microscope (TEM), UV–Vis spectroscopy techniques. The effectiveness of the highly stabilized silver nanoparicles in alginate film as a heterogeneous catalyst has been estimated on the well-known p-nitrophenol (p-NP) reduction to p-aminophenol (p-AP) in the presence of excess sodium borohydride.