An efficient and simple ligand from phthalandione for palladium-catalyzed Suzuki reaction in aqueous media

An efficient and simple ligand derived from phthalandione was used for palladium catalyzed Suzuki coupling reaction in water/ethanol (V/V = 2/1) under aerobic conditions. The reaction exhibited a high catalytic efficiency even with lower Pd loading (0.002 mol %). In this work, the catalyst could be successfully used in coupling reaction between various aryl halides with phenylboronic acid in excellent yields with high turnover number (TON) (the maximal TON was up to 49,000 for the reaction of bromobenzene with phenylboronic acid). Moreover, this new ligand had been elucidated by 1H NMR, 13C NMR and X-ray crystal diffraction.