Solid acid catalysts (SACs) have attracted continuous research interests in past years as they play a pivotal role in establishing environmental friendly catalytic processes for various chemical industries. Yet the development of versatile SACs with low cost and high efficiency remains challenging so far.

In a study published in Research, a team led by Prof. YU Shuhong and LIANG Haiwei from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of Chinese Academy of Sciences reported a new type of carbon-based SACs, which is highly porous and made from natural bacterial cellulose (BC) as if they had the power of Midas to turn a stone into gold.

To transform BC into such carbon-based catalyst, researchers developed a method with two phases, i.e., incomplete carbonization and then sulfonation. BC aerogels were first carbonized at 400-800°C under a N₂ atmosphere, and sulfonated with concentrated or fuming H₂SO₄ subsequently.

In addition, researchers revealed the detailed surface chemistry of the nanofibrous SACs. The prepared SACs well inherited the three-dimensional nanofiber network structure of natural cellulose, and thus exhibited high specific surface areas (up to 837 m² g^-1) and large pore volumes (up to 0.92 cm³ g^-1).

These characters resulted in the versatility of BC-based SACs. A wide range of important reactions can be accelerated with performance overshowing other state-of-the-art SACs, like esterification of oleic acid and pinacol rearrangement.

The concept of converting nanofibrous cellulose to SACs demonstrated in this study will shed new light on the development of highly efficient catalysts based on nanostructured biomass for green and sustainable chemistry.

Solid Acid Catalysts (SACs) made from becterial cellulose (BC). (Image by YU Shuhong)