Synthesis of Palladium Nanocubes/Nanorods and Their Catalytic Activity for Heck Reaction of Iodobenzene

Palladium has been used as a catalyst not only in Suzuki and Heck cross coupling reaction in organic chemistry, but also in automobile industry for the reduction of vehicle exhausts. The catalytic activity of Pd nanoparticles depends strongly on their size and exposed crystalline facets. In this study, the single crystalline palladium nanocubes/nanorods were prepared in the presence of polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) and potassium bromide (KBr) using the polyol method. Selected area diffraction pattern and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were performed by TEM. The result shows that the ratio of KBr/PVP is the key factor to determine whether the product is cubes or rods. The as-prepared Pd nanocubes were highly uniform in both size and shape. The ordered packing structures including monolayer and multilayer can be fabricated via the rate-controlled evaporation of solution solvent. The catalytic activity of these Pd nanocubes towards heck reaction of iodobenzene with acrylate or acrylic acid was found to be higher than that of Pd nanorods. We suspect it is caused by the difference of energy state while Pd nanocubes is {100} plane and nanorods is {111} plane.