Production and Application of Highly Efficient and Reusable Palladium Nanocatalyst Decorated on the Magnetically Retrievable Chitosan/Activated Carbon Composite Microcapsules

Abstract

This study reports (i) the production of magnetically retrievable microcapsules as immobilizing agents, which are composed of chitosan/activated carbon composite (CS-AC/Fe3O4), (ii) the green synthesis of highly stable palladium nanoparticles on CS-AC/Fe3O4 without using any toxic reducing agents (Pd NPs@CS-AC/Fe3O4), (iii) the investigation of catalytic behavior of Pd NPs@CS-AC/Fe3O4 in Suzuki–Miyaura reactions of different aryl iodides, bromides, and chlorides, and (iv) the examination of recoverability and reusability of Pd NPs@CS-AC/Fe3O4. The characterization of Pd NPs@CS-AC/Fe3O4 was performed by FT-IR, TG/DTG, XRD, SEM, and EDS analyses. It was found that the average sizes of palladium nanoparticles were changed in the range of 31–48\xa0nm. The catalytic tests revealed that Pd NPs@CS-AC/Fe3O4 was a very effective catalyst against synthesis of various biaryl compounds via Suzuki–Miyaura reactions, by giving high reaction yields under mild reaction conditions. Furthermore, it was found that Pd NPs@CS-AC/Fe3O4 was a highly retrievable and practical nanocatalyst due to its reusable nature. Pd NPs@CS-AC/Fe3O4 gave 95% of yield after ten successive cycles. These results show that Pd NPs@CS-AC/Fe3O4 is a superb catalyst and it can be applied in different catalytic systems or industrial applications due to the fact that it offers notable advantages such as high catalytic performance, reusability, stability, excellent functional group tolerance, wide substrate scope, and simple separation.Graphical Abstract