A novel Heck reaction catalyst consisting of a palladium(II) complex of meso-tetra(p-hydroxyphenyl)porphyrin (MTP) and cross-linked chloromethylated polystyrene microspheres (PMs) was successfully prepared via covalent ether bonds between the chloride groups in the PMs and the hydroxyl groups in MTP. The catalyst was characterized using scanning electron microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). This polystyrene-supported palladium-complex was an efficient heterogeneous catalyst for cross-coupling of aryl iodides with ethyl acrylate. The reaction of iodobenzene and ethyl acrylate under N-2 at 100 degrees C and a catalyst concentration of 0.1% gave a gas chromatography product yield of 99.8%, which is much higher than that achieved using a free palladium(II) complex of MTP as the catalyst (41.3%). The catalyst was recycled up to six times without significant loss of catalytic activity. These results suggest that the immobilized palladium(II)-MTP catalyst has potential applications in synthetic and industrial chemistry. (C) 2014 Chinese Society of Particuology and Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.