A glucose-derived carbon–silica supported Ni(0) nanocatalyst was developed for Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling. Glucose serves as both reductant and carbon source, enabling additive-free Ni(0) formation. The catalyst exhibits high stability, no Ni leaching, and maintains catalytic performance over six cycles. Extensive characterization confirms its efficiency, reusability, and heterogeneous nature.

Abstract

In this study, we report a renewable, glucose-derived nickel(0) nanoparticles for the Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling (SMC) reaction. A key feature of the catalyst is that, glucose plays the dual role which functions both as a reductant and as a carbon source for the support, enabling the formation of Ni(0) under additive-free conditions. Further, to gain the insight of physiochemical properties, the Ni(0)NPs is characterized by PXRD, SEM, EDX, TEM, BET, XPS, ICP-MS, and elemental mapping. The catalyst comprises metallic Ni nanoparticles (∼13 nm), uniformly dispersed on a composite support of amorphous carbon and silica. Moreover, XPS demonstrates retention of the Ni(0) oxidation state and ICP-MS reveals no Ni-leaching even after six catalytic cycles, indicating the system having excellent stability and indeed heterogeneity. The system performs consistently by maintaining the yields across six consecutive cycles, with favorable turnover number (TON) and turnover frequency (TOF). A CHEM21 metrics assessment is also provided to support the evaluation of reaction efficiency and operational safety.