It has previously been shown that the easily handled,
heat- and
air-stable compound Pd(η3-1-PhC3H4)(η5-C5H5) (Vb) reacts rapidly with a wide variety of tertiary phosphines L to
produce near-quantitative yields of the corresponding Pd(0) compounds
PdL2, which are widely believed to be the active species
in many often-used cross-coupling catalyst systems based on Pd(PPh3)4 (I), Pd2(dba)3 (II), PdCl2 (III), and Pd(OAc)2 (IV). However, catalyst precursors I–IV are in fact known to preferentially generate
sterically hindered, three-coordinate Pd(0) species rather than two-coordinate
PdL2, and thus Vb is hypothetically expected
to be a better catalyst precursor for e.g. Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling
reactions. Utilizing the conventional Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling
reaction of phenylboronic acid with bromoanisole, comparisons are
made of the efficacies of catalyst systems based on Vb with those based on compounds I–IV (L = the representative phosphines PPh3, PCy3, PBu
t
3). As anticipated,
catalysts generated from Vb are significantly more competent
and, as a bonus, Vb makes palladium(0) complexes PdL2 available under rigorously anhydrous conditions.