Synthesis of peptide nanofibers decorated with palladium nanoparticles and its application as an efficient catalyst for the synthesis of sulfides via reaction of aryl halides with thiourea or 2-mercaptobenzothiazole

In this work supported Pd nanoparticles on a peptide nanofiber (PdNP-PNF) have been prepared via fabrication of self-assembled woven nanofiber from peptide, subsequently immobilization of palladium nanoparticles on this nanostructural compound. To obtain self-assembled woven nanofiber, we designed and synthesized a peptide using arginine as building block. The C-terminus of amino acid was protected as ethylester. Coupling was mediated by dicyclohexylecarbodiimide-1-hydroxybenzotriazole (DCC-HOBT). TEM, SEM, XRD, ICP and FT-IR techniques were employed to characterize prepared nanofiber materials. In this work, the effect of phosphate buffer solutions pH 8 and pH 11 (isoelectric point of arginine amino acid) on the structure of peptide nanofiber was investigated. Supported Pd nanoparticles on the peptide nanofiber (PdNP-PNF) were applied for the C-S coupling reaction using two different sulfur transfer reagents (thiourea and 2-mercaptobenzothiazole).