Abstract: | From readily available starting materials, six 1,3‐dialkyl‐imidazolinium bromides ( 2a–f ) have been prepared and characterized by conventional spectroscopic methods and elemental analyses. The incorporation of saturated N‐heterocyclic carbenes into palladium precatalysts gives high catalyst activity in the Suzuki coupling of deactivated aryl chloride substrates in aqueous media. The complexes were generated in the presence of Pd(OAc)2 by in situ deprotonation of 2a–f . © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heteroatom Chem 16:557–561, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/hc.20140 |