An ester appending multifunctional ionic liquid for Pd(II) catalyzed Heck reaction

Abstract A basic, ester functionalized, imidazolium based ionic liquid (IL2), 3-Methyl-1-(ethoxycarbonylmethyl)imidazolium hydroxide was designed eyeing in situ generation and stabilization of palladium nanoparticles for palladium catalyzed Heck reaction of haloarenes and olefins. This phosphine-free Pd-IL catalyst demonstrated excellent activity and reusability at relatively low reaction temperature (80 °C) for a wide spectrum of haloarenes including chloroarenes. The relatively low reaction temperature could be attributed to in situ generation of uniform and spherical palladium nanoparticles (~ 5 nm).