Palladium on Carbon: An Efficient,Heterogeneous and Reusable Catalytic System for Carbonylative Synthesis of N‐Substituted Phthalimides

The application of palladium on carbon (Pd/C) as a heterogeneous recyclable catalyst was investigated for the double carbonylation of o‐dihaloarenes with amines providing excellent yield of N‐substituted phthalimides in shorter reaction time as compared to earlier reported homogeneous protocols. Furthermore, the scope of the developed protocol was applied for the synthesis N‐substituted phthalimides from o‐halobenzoates and o‐halobenzoic acid via a single step carbonylative cyclization reaction. The developed methodology describes an efficient one‐step approach for the synthesis of an important class of heterocycles and tolerates a wide variety of functional groups. It circumvents the use of phosphine ligands with an additional advantage of catalyst recyclability for up to eight consecutive cycles.