Robust acenaphthoimidazolylidene palladium complexes: highly efficient catalysts for Suzuki-Miyaura couplings with sterically hindered substrates.

Robust acenaphthoimidazolylidene palladium complexes have been demonstrated as highly efficient and general catalysts for the sterically hindered Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reactions in excellent yields even with low catalyst loadings under mild reaction conditions. The high catalytic activity of these complexes highlights that, besides the "flexible steric bulky" concept, σ-donor properties of the NHC ligands are also crucial to accelerate the transformations.