Waste corn-cob cellulose supported Cu-nanoparticles were found to be a highly effective catalyst for aza-Michael reactions at room temperature.

Waste corn-cob cellulose supported poly(amidoxime) palladium nanoparticles (PdNs@PA) were prepared by the surface modification of waste corn-cob cellulose through graft co-polymerization and subsequent amidoximation. The supported nanoperticles showed high catalytic activity (45-400 mol ppm) towards Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling of aryl bromides/chlor-ides with organoboronic acids to give the corresponding biaryl products up to 99 % yield with high turnover number (TON) 19777 and turnover frequency (TOF) 4944 h À1 . The PdNs@PA was easily recovered from the reaction mixture and reused several times without significant loss of its catalytic activity.[a] T.