Recyclable heterogeneous palladium-catalyzed carbonylative Sonogashira coupling under CO gas-free conditions

A convenient, efficient and practical heterogeneous palladium-catalyzed carbonylative Sonogashira coupling of aryl iodides with terminal alkynes under CO gas-free conditions has been developed by using an MCM-41-supported bidentate phosphine palladium acetate complex as catalyst. Here, formic acid was used as the CO source with dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (DCC) as the activator and a wide variety of alkynyl ketones were generated in moderate to high yields. This heterogeneous palladium catalyst can be easily recovered via a simple filtration process and recycled up to 8 times without apparent loss of activity.