Supported palladium nanoparticles synthesized by living plants as a catalyst for Suzuki-Miyaura reactions

PLoS One. 2014 Jan 29;9(1):e87192. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0087192. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

The metal accumulating ability of plants has previously been used to capture metal contaminants from the environment; however, the full potential of this process is yet to be realized. Herein, the first use of living plants to recover palladium and produce catalytically active palladium nanoparticles is reported. This process eliminates the necessity for nanoparticle extraction from the plant and reduces the number of production steps compared to traditional catalyst palladium on carbon. These heterogeneous plant catalysts have demonstrated high catalytic activity in Suzuki coupling reactions between phenylboronic acid and a range of aryl halides containing iodo-, bromo- and chloro- moieties.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Arabidopsis / metabolism*
  • Boronic Acids / chemistry
  • Catalysis
  • Coordination Complexes / chemistry
  • Halogenation
  • Hydrocarbons, Brominated / chemical synthesis
  • Hydrocarbons, Iodinated / chemical synthesis
  • Metal Nanoparticles / chemistry*
  • Palladium / chemistry*
  • Palladium / metabolism

Substances

  • Boronic Acids
  • Coordination Complexes
  • Hydrocarbons, Brominated
  • Hydrocarbons, Iodinated
  • Palladium
  • benzeneboronic acid

Grants and funding

Funding was received from EPSRC, grant code: EP/P505178/1. Funding was also received from “The G8 Research Councils Initiative on Multilateral Research Funding” (funds came from EPSRC) grant code: EP/K022482/1. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.