Chemists finally know why palladium beats nickel at C–H activation

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SUMMARY

Chemists have established that palladium-based catalysts outperform nickel catalysts in C–H activation reactions, a critical process in organic chemistry. Demyan Prokopchuk and his team at Rutgers University–Newark conducted a systematic study comparing the C–H bond-breaking abilities of nickel and palladium under identical conditions, addressing a gap in existing research. Their findings, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, highlight the need for detailed investigations into catalyst performance, particularly in the context of synthetic chemistry.

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Astronuc
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Reactions that sever typically unreactive carbon-hydrogen bonds, known as C–H activations, are a well-studied staple of organic chemistry. So it’s a well-known fact that palladium-based catalysts tend to work better than ones based on palladium’s cheaper, possibly greener first-row counterpart, nickel.

But among the reams of scholarly papers about C–H activation methods and mechanisms, Demyan Prokopchuk saw something missing: a detailed comparison of nickel and palladium’s C–H bond-breaking abilities under identical conditions.

“Really, nobody took a step back and asked, ‘How do we systematically even measure the C-H bond strength in this activation step?’ ” he says. He and his team at Rutgers University–Newark took it upon themselves to change that.
https://cen.acs.org/synthesis/c-h-activation/Chemists-finally-know-palladium-beats/103/web/2025/09

Prokopchuk and his group published their initial results on the nickel complex in 2022 (J. Am. Chem. Soc. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.2c05667). Their investigation into the palladium complex came out on Sept. 9 (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2025, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.5c07649).
 
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"Really, nobody took a step back and asked..."

And then proceeds to present
extremely non-trivial physical chemistry. I find that many such parameters go undiscovered because many synthetic groups simply lack the know-how for such studies. Good others take initiative.
 

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