Single-Molecule Catalysis in the Palladium Cross-Coupling Reaction Cycle

Single-molecule (SM) methods are applied to study various types of catalytic processes in chemical and biochemical reactions. In this study, the Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reaction forming a fluorescent product is investigated within the SM approximation. Stochastic analysis of emission intermittency in selected nanoscopic spots allows us to determine the single-molecule turnover frequency (SM-TOF) of the Pd catalyst in a specific probe reaction. We generate and analyze simulated intermittency time traces of a single catalyst surrounded by reactant molecules to assess the reliability of the method applied to real intermittency time trace data from hundreds of nanoscopic fluorescence spots. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can be used to evaluate the average SM-TOF of Pd in a cross-coupling reaction.