Mesoporous carbon supported ultrasmall palladium particles as highly active catalyst for Suzuki-Miyaura reaction

A fast and efficient eco-friendly two-step preparation of a palladium-containing mesoporous carbon catalyst (C1) from green and readily available carbon precursors (phloroglucinol and glyoxal), a porogen template (pluronic F-127) and PdCl2 is described. Catalyst C1 contains ultra-small Pd nanoparticles (1.2 nm) uniformly dispersed in the carbon network and shows an outstanding activity for Suzuki-Miyaura reactions in pure water: extremely low amounts of palladium (10 mu equiv. in most cases) are sufficient to afford almost palladium-free products (containing <0.25 ppm of precious metal without further purification steps).