Rapid synthesis of Pd single-atom/cluster as highly active catalysts for Suzuki coupling reactions

Palladium (Pd)-based catalysts are essential to drive high-performance Suzuki coupling reactions, which are powerful tools for the synthesis of functional organic compounds. Herein, we developed a solution-rapid-annealing process to stabilize nitrogen-mesoporous carbon supported Pd single-atom/cluster (Pd/NMC) material, which provided a catalyst with superior performance for Suzuki coupling reactions. In comparison with commercial palladium/carbon (Pd/C) catalysts, the Pd/NMC catalyst exhibited significantly boosted activity (100% selectivity and 95% yield) and excellent stability (almost no decay in activity after 10 reuse cycles) for the Suzuki coupling reactions of chlorobenzenes, together with superior yield and excellent selectivity in the fields of the board scope of the reactants. Moreover, our newly developed rapid annealing process of precursor solutions is applied as a generalized method to stabilize metal clusters (e.g. Pd, Pt, Ru), opening new possibilities in the construction of efficient highly dispersed metal atom and sub-nanometer cluster catalysts with high performance.