Metal phosphine aldehyde complexes and their application in Cu-free Sonogashira and Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reactions.

Transition metal coordination chemistry and catalysis are rife with phosphine ligands. One of the rather less studied members of the phosphine ligand family are phosphine aldehydes. We have synthesised 3-(diphenylphosphino)propanal (PCHO) with a slight modification of the known procedure and studied its complexation behaviour with palladium(II) and platinum(II). The catalytic activity of the palladium(II) phosphine aldehyde complexes was investigated in Cu-free Sonogashira and Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reactions. Furthermore, the homogeneous nature of the catalytically active species was confirmed.