Congratulations to our Ph.D. student Alberto Gobbo for his scientific publication entitled “A Simple Synthetic Route to Well-Defined [Pd(NHC)Cl(1-tBu-indenyl)] Pre-catalysts for Cross-Coupling Reactions” in the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry. A simple and eco-friendly synthetic protocol leading to [Pd(NHC)Cl(1-tBu-indenyl)] complexes bearing different saturated and unsaturated NHC ligands (NHC=IPr, IPrCl, IMes, SIMes, IPr*) is reported.
All complexes were obtained in excellent yields under mild conditions in the presence of the weak base K2CO3 in green acetone as the solvent. The synthesized Pd(II)-NHC derivatives displayed excellent catalytic activity in classical Suzuki-Miyaura and Buchwald–Hartwig reactions, especially when IPrCl was employed as ancillary ligand. Additionally, in the challenging Suzuki-Miyaura reaction between esters and arylboronic acids, the [Pd(IPr*)Cl(1-tBu-indenyl)] complex exhibited the optimum catalytic activity under mild reaction conditions. The work has been just accepted and it can be found at https://doi.org/10.1002/ejic.202100840
