A hydrophilic Pd/MgO nanosystem for the highly efficient aqueous-phase catalysis of Suzuki–Miyaura reactions

Palladium-catalyzed Suzuki coupling reactions are regarded as one of the most effective methods for making C–C bonds, however the green synthesis to substitute the use of abundant organic solvents has been a challenge problem. Herein, two commercial hydrophilic MgO with different size were selected to support the highly dispersed Pd nanoparticles (NPs) due to the strong host–guest interactions and good hydrophilicity. When applied the (Pd/MgO)nano to catalyze the Suzuki–Miyaura reaction in aqueous solution, the (Pd/MgO)nano exhibited much better catalytic performance compared to the (Pd/MgO)bulk. Particularly, the (Pd/MgO)nano also exhibited significantly higher catalytic performance than the commercial Pd/C catalyst (95% vs. 62%) due to its excellent hydrophilicity. Besides, the solvent effects, temperature effects, substrate tolerance and so forth have been systematically investigated to further demonstrate its catalytic performance. More importantly, (Pd/MgO)nano still retained about 87% catalytic acti...