Catalysis Studies of Macroreticular Polystyrene Cation‐exchange Resin with Terminal Perfluoroalkanesulfonic Acids

Macroreticular p-(ω-sulfonic-perfluoroalkylated) polystyrene (FPS) resin with the advantages of both sulfonic polystyrene (such as macroreticular Amberlyst-15) and perfluoroalkanesulfonic resin (such as superacidic Nafion NR50) has exhibited excellent catalytic selectivity and activity in cyclization of pseudoionone and condensation of indole. In this paper, FPS was characterized by XPS, nitrogen sorption technique, FESEM and Hammett indicator method, and employed as the solid acid catalyst in the esterification, acylation and alkylation reactions. The FPS resin showed better activity than commercial solid acid catalysts (Amberlyst-15 and Nafion NR50) owing to its high surface area and strong acidity close to superacidity.