Facile synthesis of Pd/Fe3O4/charcoal bifunctional catalysts with high metal loading for high product yields in Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reactions

In the present work, we synthesized magnetically separable Pd/Fe3O4/charcoal nanocatalysts by simple solid-state grinding of a mixture of salts and the simultaneous thermal decomposition of the salts. The highly loaded Pd nanoparticles (20 wt%) were well dispersed in the porous charcoal, with an average diameter of similar to 5 nm and clean surfaces without any surfactant. Moreover, the simultaneously obtained Fe3O4 nanoparticles (10 wt%) had good superparamagnetic character, enabling quick separation of the catalyst from the products and re-dispersion in the reaction solution. The bifunctional catalyst showed a high product time yield with various substituted aryl halides and aryl boronic acids.