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.