Porous magnesia as solid base for ligand-free Heck reaction

MgO particles with different morphologies and textural properties are prepared and tested as solid bases for various ligand-free Heck reactions at low Pd loading (0.05 mol%). Moderate (57%) to high (99.5%) conversions have been achieved with fresh porous polyhedral MgO particles. Used MgO particles are recovered by filtration and reactivated by calcination at 500 °C in air. The reactivated MgO particles have been used four times as solid base for arylation of styrene with bromobenzene with conversion of 70–86% and turnover number of 1411–1714.