A new class of easily accessible hemilabile benzimidazolyl phosphine ligands has been developed. The ligand skeleton is prepared from commercially available and inexpensive o-phenylenediamine and 2-bromobenzoic acid. With catalyst loading down to 0.5 mol% palladium, excellent catalytic activity towards the Suzuki–Miyaura coupling of aryl mesylates is still observed. This represents the lowest catalyst loading achieved so far for this reaction in general. X-Ray crystallography shows that new ligand L2 is coordinated with Pd in a κ2-P,N fashion.

This study describes the efficacy of P,N-type benzimidazolyl phosphine ligands, which can be easily synthesized from commercially available and inexpensive starting materials. The application of this ligand array in palladium-catalyzed Suzuki–Miyaura coupling reaction of aryl chlorides with potassium aryltrifluoroborates is described. The air stable benzimidazolyl phosphines in combination with a palladium metal precursor provides highly effective catalysts for the Suzuki–Miyaura coupling of unactivated aryl chlorides and can achieve a catalyst loading of only 0.05 mol %.

A new class of easily accessible hemilabile benzimidazolyl phosphine ligands has been developed. The ligand skeleton is prepared from commercially available and inexpensive o-phenylenediamine and 2-bromobenzoic acid. With catalyst loading down to 0.5 mol% palladium, excellent catalytic activity towards the Suzuki–Miyaura coupling of aryl mesylates is still observed. This represents the lowest catalyst loading achieved so far for this reaction in general. X-Ray crystallography shows that new ligand L2 is coordinated with Pd in a κ2-P,N fashion.