Development of Silver Nanoparticles Decorated on Functional Glass Slide as Highly Efficient and Recyclable Dip Catalyst

The development of a highly reusable and extremely efficient catalyst is still a fundamental as well as technological problem. Here, we report on the preparation and catalytic applications of Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) immobilized on amine terminated glass slide as a dip catalyst for the transformation of nitrophenol, intramolecular cascade reaction and synthesis of 5-Phenyl-1H-tetrazole. The dip catalyst system consists of AgNPs stabilized on microscopic glass slide as the support. AgNPs were decorated on the glass slide by modifying the glass surface with (3-Aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES). The dip catalyst was characterized using SEM, EDX, FTIR, and TEM, and AFM. This system is found to be stable in both organic and aquous solvents and exhibits excellent recyclability even at high temperatures. The catalyst was used for 20 cycles of nitrophenol reduction reaction and 5 cycles for other reactions in this study to test its efficiency. No any significant decrease was observed in the activity of the catalyst. We have also investigated the applicability of the AgNPs immobilized on functional glass slide as surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate to understand the catalytic reduction reaction mechanism.