Robust and reusable supported palladium catalysts for cross-coupling reactions in flow

Two novel polymer encapsulated silica supported palladium catalysts have been prepared and shown to be highly active, robust and recyclable catalysts for Heck and Suzuki–Miyaura cross coupling reactions under continuous flow conditions. They were demonstrated to give excellent conversions of both electron rich and electron deficient substrates and the catalysts were used for over 50 hours continuous operation without any appreciable decrease in catalytic activity and low levels of Pd leaching measured by ICP-MS.