N-doped mesoporous carbons supported palladium catalysts prepared from chitosan/silica/palladium gel beads

In this study, a heterogeneous catalyst including palladium nanoparticles supported on nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon (Pd@N-C) is synthesized from palladium salts as palladium precursor, colloidal silica as template, and chitosan as carbon source. N-2 sorption isotherm results show that the prepared Pd@N-C had a high BET surface area (640 m(2) g(-1)) with large porosity. The prepared Pd@N-C is high nitrogen rich as characterized with element analysis. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), and Raman spectroscopy characterization of the catalyst shows that the palladium species with different chemical states are well dispersed on the nitrogen containing mesoporous carbon. The Pd@N-C is high active and shows excellent stability as applied in Heck coupling reactions. This work supplies a successful method to prepare Pd heterogeneous catalysts with high performance from bulk biopolymer/Pd to high porous nitrogen-doped carbon supported palladium catalytic materials. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.