A novel sulfonated carbon from bamboo (SBC) was prepared by one-pot method using p-toluenesulfonic acid as sulfonating agent. The structure and property of SBC were characterized using elemental analysis

acid-base inverse titration

thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA)

X-ray photon spectroscopy (XPS)

XRD and FTIR. Esterification of n-butanol with acetic acid was used as a standard reaction to evaluate the catalytic performance of SBC. The influences of catalyst amount

temperature and molar ratio of acid to alcohol were fully investigated．91.8% conversion of n-butanol with 99.5% selectivity was achieved under the following conditions: reaction temperature 80℃

reaction time 4 h

catalyst amount 10% (mass) of n-butanol

molar ratio of acetic acid to n-butanol 3.5:1. Above 80% conversion of n-butanol could still be reached after SBC was used for 5 times. Additionally

SBC showed comparable or superior catalytic activity in other esterification reactions in comparison with the commercial ion exchange resin Amberslyst-15

which demonstrated that SBC has a good prospect in industrial applications.