A selective heterogeneous cellulose supported Schiff base Cu(II) catalyst for Chan–Evans–Lam coupling

Cellulose-immobilized Cu(II) Schiff base complex [Cell-AP-Cu(II)] has been designed and synthesized by multistep approach by the reaction of Schiff base functionalized cellulose (Cell-AP) with Cu(OAc)2 in ethanol under reflux condition. The [Cell-AP-Cu(II)] complex was characterized by FT-IR, TGA, XRD, SEM, EDS, and BET/BJH techniques. The functionality and composition of the catalyst was confirmed by IR and EDX analysis, respectively. The catalytic effectiveness of [Cell-AP-Cu (II)] is investigated for Chan–Lam coupling of phenylboronic acids and secondary amines. A range of functionalized derivatives have been synthesized with high yield in short reaction time. The plausible mechanism illustrates the formation of derivatives. The peculiar advantages of the proposed protocol are high TONs (up to 873) and TOFs (up to 873), minimal catalyst loading (0.11 mol %), recyclability of the catalyst (up to 5 times) and moderate reaction conditions.