N-doped mesoporous carbons supported palladium catalysts prepared from chitosan/silica/palladium gel beads

• Novel uniform mesoporous Pd@N-C heterogeneous catalyst is prepared.
• Thermal carbonization and silica template removing techniques are used.
• The catalyst exhibits excellent activity and super stability in Heck reactions.
• CS is used as beginning material and the preparation method is not complicated.

In this study, a heterogeneous catalyst including palladium nanoparticles supported on nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon (Pd@N-C) is synthesized from palladium salts as palladium precursor, colloidal silica as template, and chitosan as carbon source. N2 sorption isotherm results show that the prepared Pd@N-C had a high BET surface area (640 m2 g−1) with large porosity. The prepared Pd@N-C is high nitrogen-rich as characterized with element analysis. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), and Raman spectroscopy characterization of the catalyst shows that the palladium species with different chemical states are well dispersed on the nitrogen-containing mesoporous carbon. The Pd@N-C is high active and shows excellent stability as applied in Heck coupling reactions. This work supplies a successful method to prepare Pd heterogeneous catalysts with high performance from bulk biopolymer/Pd to high porous nitrogen-doped carbon supported palladium catalytic materials.