Si-thiol supported atomic-scale palladium as efficient and recyclable catalyst for Suzuki coupling reaction

Atomic-scale catalysts leverage the advantages of both heterogeneous catalysts for their stability and reusability and homogeneous catalysts for their isolated active sites. Here, a palladium catalyst supported by Si-thiol, a commercially available mercaptopropyl-modified and TMS-passivated amorphous silica, was synthesized and characterized by SEM,TEM, aberration-corrected STEM-HAADF, XRD, FT-IR and XPS. Statistical analysis revealed that the catalytic Pd species predominantly consisted of intermediate sized nanoparticles (<2 nm), small amounts of essentially isolated atoms (ca. 0.1 nm), and limited amounts of somewhat larger nanoparticles (<5 nm). The nanoscale atomic clusters dominated the reactivity and served as the key active sites for Suzuki coupling. The outcomes of the reaction were greatly affected by the choice of solvents, and Pd/Si-thiol was demonstrated to be reusable for more than three times without a noticeable loss of catalytic activity.

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