A highly water-dispersible/magnetically separable palladium catalyst based on a Fe3O4@SiO2 anchored TEG-imidazolium ionic liquid for the Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction in water

A novel ionic liquid functionalized magnetic nanoparticle was prepared by anchoring an imidazolium ionic liquid bearing triethylene glycol moieties on the surface of silica-coated iron oxide nanoparticles. The material proved to be an effective host for the immobilization of a Pd catalyst through a subsequent simple ion-exchange process giving a highly water dispersible, active and yet magnetically recoverable Pd catalyst (Mag-IL-Pd) in the Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction in water. The as-prepared catalyst displayed remarkable activity toward challenging substrates such as heteroaryl halides and ortho-substituted aryl halides as well as aryl chlorides using very low Pd loading in excellent yields and demonstrating high TONs. Since the catalyst exhibited extremely low solubility in organic solvent, the recovered aqueous phase containing the catalyst can be simply and efficiently used in ten consecutive runs without significant decrease in activity and at the end of the process can be easily separated from the aqueous phase by applying an external magnetic field. This novel double-separation strategy with negligible leaching makes Mag-IL-Pd an eco-friendly and economical catalyst to perform this transformation.