Reagents aqueous palladium catalysis

Water is so extensively used in catalytic oxidation reactions that usually this fact is regarded as a natural feature and remains unnoticed. Wacker oxidation of olefins by palladium complexes involves water as a nucleophilic reagent, and thus the whole Wacker-type chemistry, which has developed into a powerful and versatile method of organic synthesis, is derived from aqueous catalysis [178]. The role of the nature of the co-oxidant and the mechanism of deactivation of the palladium catalyst due to aggregation and growth of inactive metal particles were recently investigated, and such study may have relevance for other processes catalyzed by phosphine-less palladium catalysts [179]. 

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