Silver-nanospheres as a green catalyst for the decontamination of hazardous pollutants

Abstract

The development of efficient green chemistry routes for the synthesis of metal nanoparticles has become a major focus for researchers. The present paper reports a facile, green and one-pot synthesis of silver-nanospheres (Ag-NSs) with a high yield and a uniform size of 7 nm using Simarouba glauca leaf extract (SGLE). The Ag-NSs have been characterized for their morphology, crystallinity and structure using TEM, EDX, XRD, and FT-IR and their formation mechanism has been discussed. In addition, the decontamination of hazardous pollutants, 4-hydroxynitrobenzene (4-HNB) and 4-nitrophenylamine (4-NPA) with the addition of an excess amount of ice cold NaBH₄ solution using the Ag-NSs as an excellent green catalyst has also been investigated spectrometrically. The reusability of the catalyst was achieved for the reaction even after five cycles.