Exploitation of Electrostatic Field Force for Immobilization and Catalytic Reduction of o-Nitrobenzoic Acid to Anthranilic Acid on Resin-bound Silver Nanocomposites

A new solid-phase catalyst has been designed and reported here for the catalytic reduction of o-nitrobenzoic acid to anthranilic acid. Electrostatic field force helps immobilization, in turn deposition of silver nanoparticles onto solid resin surfaces and reduction of o-nitrobenzoic acid through effective catalysis. While characterization of catalyst particles has been performed by different physical methods (XRD, XPS, SEM, TEM, and EDX) in a worthwhile fashion, selective reduction of o-nitrobenzoic acid has also been achieved conveniently (approximately 95%). Different thermodynamic parameters for the reduction reaction have been presented from varied experimental conditions. Novelty of this work lies with the catalytic efficiency of nanometer size silver particles immobilized solid-phase matrix for one step synthesis of anthranilic acid over bulk silver.