Diynes are an important moiety that have been integral in the pharmaceutical and electronic materials industry for years. Current methods to synthesize diynes either perform inadequately or require cumbersome reaction conditions, use toxic chemicals, and generate solvent waste; overall current methods are not sustainable. Therefore, there is an urgent need to design a green and high performance method to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks and replace traditional methods. Here, we report a new approach to synthesize diynes by using high speed ball milling under solvent-free conditions. We discovered that under solvent-free conditions less catalyst is needed than previously reported in the literature.  Furthermore under our unique conditions there is no need for a copper catalyst in the system.   Additionally, we extended the methodology to palladium catalyst on solid support, and unlike most traditional catalysts that are expensive, sensitive to air and/or water, and not recoverable, our new catalytic system will be relatively cheap, insensitive to air and water and most importantly be able to be recycled and reused for use in subsequent reactions. We were able to recycle the polymer supported catalyst for 5 cycles.

Environmentally benign method for homocoupling reaction by using a recyclable catalyst via high speed ball milling

248th National Meeting (2014)

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