Pierre Fablet, Yury Vasev, Ralf Jackstell, Matthias Beller
The economic volatility of palladium has intensified research into alternative platinum-group metal (PGM) catalysts. Recent reports have highlighted the high activity of platinum in the alkoxycarbonylation of olefins and telomerization of 1,3-butadiene. However, our systematic reinvestigation reveals that this observed catalytic activity can be predominantly attributed to trace palladium impurities (at ppm levels) present in commercial platinum sources. Through rigorous ICP analysis and control experiments using ultrapure platinum, we demonstrate that even 10 ppm of palladium is sufficient to drive these transformations, whereas pure platinum exhibits significantly lower efficiency. These findings serve as a critical cautionary note for the catalysis community, emphasizing the necessity of using ultrapure PGM sources and verification protocols to avoid misattributing catalytic performance in noble metal-catalyzed reactions.