Nickel (II) acetate in heck coupling / Nik Najibah Nik Abdul Rahman

This research aims at investigating the effectiveness of nickel (II) acetate as a catalyst in the Heck reaction. Eight different conditions have been utilized in order to accomplish this research study. Each of these conditions was applied to synthesize the same stilbene. The commercially available 4-iodoanisole and 4-methoxystyrene were coupled together under the Heck reaction by using these conditions in attempt to synthesize 4, 12-dimethoxystilbene. As the result, utilizing nickel (II) acetate as a catalyst in the presence of tetraphenylphosphonium chloride as a ligand able to produce 1.07% yield only, while in the presence of tri-p-tolylphosphine, tri-o-tolylphosphine as a ligand, and cesium carbonate as a base was not able to produce any yield respectively. By utilizing palladium chloride as a catalyst in the presence of the same conditions, the desired stilbene able to be produced with the yield of 40% (with tetraphenylphosphonium chloride), 20.05% (with tri-p-tolylphosphine), 4.11 % (with tri-o-tolylphosphine), and 5% (with cesium carbonate). TLC, 1H NMR and FT-IR characterization were used to confirm the desired product.