Solid/liquid palladium-catalyzed coupling of haloaryls using alcohols as reducing agents: kinetics and process optimization

Abstract

Heterogeneous Pd-catalyzed coupling reaction of substituted halobenzenes to biphenyls is performed effectively in different organic solvents using an alcohol as the reducing agent in the presence of a base and a catalytic amount of phase-transfer (PT) agent. The alcohol is oxidized to the respective aldehyde or ketone. Kinetic studies show that the reaction rate equation fits to second order in halobenzene. The effects of reaction temperature, catalyst loading, base concentration, PTC concentration, and alcohol concentration and structure are studied and discussed.