An oven-dried 25 ml pressure flask was charged in a glovebox with Pd2dba3 (228.9 mg, 0.25 mmol, 1.0 Pd eq.), Xantphos (347.3 mg, 0.6 mmol, 1.2 eq.), 2,6-dimethyliodobenzene (86.6 L, 0.6 mmol, 1.2 eq.), benzene (6 mL) and a stirbar. The flask was sealed, removed from the glovebox and the purple solution was stirred at 60 o C for 16 h yielding a brown solution and yellow solid. The flask was taken into a glovebox, and the mother liquor removed leaving a yellow-green solid. After washing with various solvents (benzene, toluene, THF, DCM, chloroform and acetone) in which the solid was insoluble, ESI-MS confirmed the identity of the solid as Pd(Xantphos)2. The green tinge is due to traces of Pd black. MS-ESI m/z: 1262.7