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Updated: Jan 24, 2026

Palladium N-Heterocyclic Carbene Complexes: Synthesis from Benzimidazolium Salts and Catalytic Activity in Carbon-carbon Bond-forming Reactions
Published on: July 30, 2017
Solid-phase synthesis of biocompatible N-heterocyclic carbene-Pd catalysts using a sub-monomer approach
Durgadas Cherukaraveedu1, Paul T Cowling, Gavin P Birch
1EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, Joseph Black Building, University of Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK. mark.bradley@ed.ac.uk annamaria.lilienkampf@ed.ac.uk.
Abstract:
Taking inspiration from the assembly of so-called peptoids (N-alkylglycine oligomers) we present a new synthetic methodology whereby N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) based Pd ligands were assembled using a sub-monomer approach and loaded with Pd via solid-phase synthesis. This allowed the rapid generation a library of NHC-palladium catalysts that were readily functionalised to allow bioconjugation. These catalysts were able to rapidly activate a caged fluorophore and 'switch-on' an anticancer prodrug in 3D cell culture.
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