An easily recoverable and highly reproducible agar-supported palladium catalyst for Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reactions and reduction of o-nitroaniline.

Polysaccharides are excellent support materials for catalytic systems due to their superior metal binding capacity, high mechanical strength, and green nature. Among the polysaccharides, agar can be considered a good support material for catalytic reactions from the point of its low cost, easy availability, high thermal durability, and biodegradability. In this study, agar-supported palladium catalyst (AG-Pd) was designed for the first time, and then its catalytic performance was tested towards (i) Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reactions and (ii) catalytic reduction of o-nitroaniline to o-phenylenediamine under mild reaction conditions. Additionally, the reproducibility of the designed AG-Pd catalyst was investigated in both catalytic reactions, and the tests showed that the catalyst could be reused many times. AG-Pd catalyst displayed excellent selectivity and efficiency in Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reactions in only 6 min under solvent-free media. In addition, AG-Pd catalyst provided good catalytic reduction by completely reducing o-nitroaniline in 90 s at room temperature. These findings reveal that agar is a good support material, and it can be used for different catalytic systems as a support.