Highly recoverable, reusable, cost-effective, and Schiff base functionalized pectin supported Pd(II) catalyst for microwave-accelerated Suzuki cross-coupling reactions.

One of the most important problems in catalytic systems is metal leaching due to weak interactions between the supporting material and the metal ions. It adversely affects the reusability and catalytic performance of catalysts. In this study, a novel support material, which is a composed Schiff base functionalized pectin bio-polymer with good coordination performance against palladium ions, was designed and characterized to overcome the afore-mentioned problems. Then the catalytic activity of the designed pectin supported palladium catalyst (Pct-Pd) was evaluated in Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reactions. Pct-Pd catalyst provided excellent conversion yields in the reactions within 8 min. Additionally, Pct-Pd catalyst displayed superior reproducibility by giving 91% of conversion yield after 12 successive runs. Leaching test revealed that leaching of palladium ions from prepared support was negligible even after 12 runs. This study shows that the designed Pct-Pd catalyst can be transferred from academic laboratory to industrial applications due to its excellent reusability and catalytic activity.