ONO pincer palladium (II) complexes featuring furoylhydrazone ligands: Synthesis, characterization and catalytic activity towards Suzuki–Miyaura coupling reaction

Four new palladium pincer complexes incorporating ONO type furoylhydrazone ligands have been prepared in good yields. These palladium complexes were structurally characterized by elemental analysis, infrared, 1 H‐ and 13 C‐NMR spectra. X‐ray single crystal analyses of Pd1–Pd4 revealed that the metal center adopted a slightly distorted square planar geometry in which the hydrazone bound the metal ion via the phenolic‐O, azomethine‐N and imidolate‐O atoms. Using these ONO pincer complexes as catalyst, excellent yields of biaryls could be obtained for coupling of arylboronic acids with aryl bromides at a low catalyst loading (0.01 mol%).