Palladium nanoparticles supported on a titanium dioxide cellulose composite (PdNPs@TiO2-Cell) for ligand-free carbon-carbon cross coupling reactions

Well-dispersed non-spherical PdNPs with a diameter of 39-45 nm supported on a TiO2-cellulose composite (PdNPs@TiO2-Cell) can be synthesized by a simple and clean route. The catalyst was well characterized by XRD, FE-SEM, EDS, and TEM techniques. The PdNPs have good dispersity on the TiO2-Cell support. This results in excellent catalytic activities for the synthesis of biphenyls, acrylates, acetylenes and prochiral ketones using low Pd loading (1 mol%) at comparatively low temperature. The effects of the nature and amount of bases, nature of solvents, amount of catalyst and the reaction temperature on the activity of PdNPs@TiO2-Cell were thoroughly investigated. The catalyst showed at least four times reusability without decrease in catalytic activity.