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

[Astronuc]

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).

 

[Mayhem]

"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.