Construction of a Bifunctional Pd(0)-CALB@SiO2 Hybrid Catalyst for the Synthesis and Arylation of Imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine in One Pot

Herein, we describe an efficient strategy for the construction of enzyme-metal biohybrid catalyst Pd(0)-CALB@SiO₂] via encapsulation of Candida antarctica lipase B and Pd(0) within silica. Next, the applicability of the newly constructed biohybrid was demonstrated by catalyzing the sequence of Groebke-Blackburn-Bienayme (GBB) multicomponent reaction and Suzuki-Miyaura coupling in a single-pot to produce clinically significant imidazo1,2-a]pyridine derivatives. Interestingly, both entities, i.e., CALB enzyme and Pd(0)-metal of hybrid catalyst, exhibited good catalytic activity during this approach. Further, the generality of this protocol was explored by using differently substituted boronic acid, which gave related products in 49–87 % isolated yield. Next, the synthetic utility was proved by set-up a gram scale reaction which provided the complementary product in 81 % yield. Also, the developed biohybrid was found to be reusable up to five catalytic cycles.