Atomically dispersed palladium catalyses Suzuki\u2013Miyaura reactions under phosphine-free conditions

Guodong Ding,Qiang Zhang,Liguang Wang,Tao Li,Haiping Xu,Jian Chen,Leiduan Hao,Xinman Tu

doi:10.1038/s42004-020-0289-y

Abstract

Single-atom catalysts have emerged as a new frontier in catalysis science. However, their applications are still limited to small molecule activations in the gas phase, the classic organic transformations catalyzed by single-atom catalysts are still rare. Here, we report the use of a single-atom Pd catalyst for the classic Suzuki–Miyaura carbon–carbon coupling reaction under phosphine-free and open-air conditions at room temperature. The single-atom Pd catalyst is prepared through anchoring Pd on bimetal oxides (Pd-ZnO-ZrO2). The significant synergetic effect of ZnO and ZrO2 is observed. The catalyst exhibits high activity and tolerance of a wide scope of substrates. Characterization demonstrates that Pd single atoms are coordinated with two oxygen atoms in Pd-ZnO-ZrO2 catalyst. The catalyst can be fabricated on a multi-gram scale using a simple in situ co-precipitation method, which endows this catalytic system with great potential in practical applications.

Highlights

Single-atom catalysts have emerged as a new frontier in catalysis science
Owing to the microenvironment of the singleatom active species exposed on the surface of the supports, the SACs applications are limited to hydrogenation[8,9,10,11], water gas shift reactions[12,13], oxidation reactions[14,15,16,17], photocatalytic H2 evolution[18], and electrochemical reactions[19,20,21]
The detailed synthetic procedures are depicted in the Methods section. Unlike those post-functionalized porous materials, in which the transition-metal complexes located on the surfaces[24,38,44], our current work provides a unique way of immobilizing Pd species into the bimetal oxides support to incorporate the Pd atoms homogeneously distributed at the atomic level in the crystalline matrix

Summary

Introduction

Single-atom catalysts have emerged as a new frontier in catalysis science. their applications are still limited to small molecule activations in the gas phase, the classic organic transformations catalyzed by single-atom catalysts are still rare. We anticipated that single-atom Pd catalysts can be developed to catalyze the SMC reaction effectively under mild conditions. We report that the SAC Pd-ZnO-ZrO2 is capable of catalyzing the SMC reaction under phosphine-free conditions at room temperature in the air.

Results

Conclusion