Immobilized palladium nanoparticles on potassium zirconium phosphate as an efficient recoverable heterogeneous catalyst for a clean Heck reaction in flow

•Palladium nanoparticles on layered potassium α-zirconium phosphate have been prepared.•PdNP/α-ZrPK was used as catalyst in the Heck reaction to prepare 16 different products.•CH3CN/H2O azeotrope has been used as a green and recoverable reaction medium.•The use of the flow technology reduce the waste produced.•The waste produced was measured using green metric E-factor.

Palladium nanoparticles on layered potassium α-zirconium phosphate (PdNP/α-ZrPK) with high palladium loading (10.6 wt%) have been prepared and used as catalyst in low amount (0.1 mol% of Pd) in the Heck reaction of methyl acrylate and styrene with a series of aryl iodides in CH3CN/H2O azeotrope as a green medium. The procedure has been optimized under flow conditions obtaining an extremely low waste production (E-factor) and allowing to isolate the final product with very low residual palladium content without any purification step.

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