The catalytic performance of tetraphosphine based on ethylenediamine as backbone, N,N,N,N-tetra-[(diphenylphosphino)methyl]ethylenediamine, combined with palladium for the Heck reactions of aryl halides with acrylates was investigated. The results showed that the catalytic system is highly efficient for the Heck reaction of activated aryl bromides as well as inacti-vated aryl bromides. The yield of 96% was obtained with activated 4-bromobenzaldehyde even the molar ra-tio of substrate to catalyst up to 1000000, and with inactivated 4-bromoanisole or 4-chloronitrobenzene the high conversion was obtained in the presence of 0.1 mol% Pd.

Key words: Heck coupling reaction, tetraphosphine ligand, palladium