Natural Nanofibrous Cellulose-Derived Solid Acid Catalysts

Solid acid catalysts(SACs)have attracted continuous research interest in past years as they play a pivotal role in establishing environmentally friendly and sustainable catalytic processes for various chemical industries.Development of low-cost and efcient SACs applicable to diferent catalysis processes are of immense signifcance but still very challenging so far.Here,we report a new kind of SACs consisting of sulfonated carbon nanofbers that are prepared via incomplete carbonization of low-cost natural nanofbrous cellulose followed by sulphonation with sulfuric acid.Te prepared SACs feature nanofbrous network structures,high specifc surface area,and abundant sulfonate as well as hydroxyl and carboxyl groups.Remarkably,the nanofbrous SACs exhibit superior performance to the state-of-the-art SACs for a wide range of acid-catalyzed reactions,including dimerization of�-methylstyrene,esterifcation of oleic acid,and pinacol rearrangement.Te present approach holds great promise for developing new families of economic but efcient SACs based on natural precursors via scalable and sustainable protocols in the future.