A mild and recyclable nano-sized nickel catalyst for the Stille reaction in water

Abstract

We report here the first application of nano-sized nickel catalysts (phosphine dendrimer stabilized nickel nano-particles) for the Stille coupling reaction in water. The nickel nanoparticles were found to be highly active and recyclable in the reactions at ambient temperature in water medium, without co-catalyst, affording the biaryls with good to excellent yields. The catalytic process was proven to be heterogeneous, occurring on the surface of nickel nanoparticles based on parallel experiments with molecular complexes and metal leaching tests in recycling experiments as well as TEM morphology of recovered nanocatalysts.