Palladium nanoparticles entrapped in melamine-formaldehyde resin microparticles for Mizoroki--Heck reactions

Melamine-formaldehyde resin (MFR) microparticles with average diameters of 1.06 $\mu $m were synthesized with PEG-20000 as the particle-forming agent. Palladium nanoparticles were entrapped in and adsorbed on the MFR microparticles, consecutively. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to characterize the morphologies of MFR microparticles. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transition electron microscopy (TEM) showed that the palladium nanoparticles entrapped in the MFR microparticles dispersed much more homogeneously than those adsorbed on the MFR microparticles. Mizoroki--Heck reaction catalysis results demonstrated that the entrapped palladium catalyst had similar catalytic activity with the adsorbed palladium catalyst. Moreover, this novel entrapped palladium catalyst could be reused at least for 10 times without obvious loss of initial activities and with only 6.5% of overall palladium leaching.