Screening Binary Systems of Chelating Agents Combined with Carbon or Silica Gel Adsorbents: The Development of a Cost-Effective Method to Remove Palladium from Pharmaceutical Intermediates and APIs

The increasing use of palladium catalysts in the synthesis of pharmaceutical intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) has created the rising need for cost-effective ways to remove the resulting metal contaminants. A simple binary palladium scavenging system was developed using a chelating agent in combination with either activated carbon or silica gel adsorbents. Successful palladium removal was demonstrated on several reaction streams after treating contaminated solutions with the binary system followed by filtration. The binary system is proposed to effectively provide an in situ generated metal scavenger, but typically costs much less than corresponding commercial solid-supported scavengers.