Catalytic Decarbonylation of Unstrained Diaryl Ketone Moieties to 2,2′-Bipyridyls Enabled by Electron-Deficient Pd Ensembles

Although decarbonylation of carbonyl compounds have attracted much attention for the direct molecular transformations of universal carbonyl moieties into useful compounds, reports on the catalytic decarbonylation of diaryl ketones are scarce. In this study, we successfully developed a catalytic decarbonylation of unstrained diaryl ketone moieties in compounds bearing bidentate directing groups to obtain 2,2′-bipyridyls using a CeO2-supported Cu–Pd alloy nanoparticle catalyst. The catalyst characterization and a series of control experiments revealed that the decarbonylation was efficiently catalyzed by Pd(0) ensembles, which became electron-deficient upon alloying with a small amount of Cu(0) species.