Friedel-Crafts acylation reaction with anhydrides -Silica supported sulfonic acids as green and efficient heterogeneous catalysts

Since the first paper reported by Friedel and Crafts, the acylation reaction quickly became a fundamental pillar of synthetic organic chemistry at both the academic and industrial levels. In particular, maximum effort has been directed toward the use of solid acid catalysts. Recently the acylation of anisole with acetic anhydride has been carried out with good yield and excellent selectivity by using sulfonic acids tethered onto silica as catalysts. In this work we show the study dealing with the role of different silica supported sulfonic acids in the acylation of aromatics with acetic anhydride, in order to evaluate the effect of the textural properties of the catalysts.