“…[1 -3] The new environmental legislation pushes for the replacement of all liquid acids by solid acid catalysts which are environmentally more friendly catalysts and which lead to minimal pollution and waste. [4,5] Indeed, several solid acid catalysts have already been proposed which are efficient catalysts such as: Fe-modified ZSM-5 and H-β zeolites; Fe 2 O 3 or FeCl 3 deposited on micro-, meso-and macroporous [6] ; Fe-containing mesoporous molecular sieves materials [7,8] ; Fe-, Zn-, Ga-and In-modified ZSM-5 type zeolite catalysts [9] ; Ga-SBA-15 [10] ; InCl 3 , GaCl 3 , FeCl 3 and ZnCl 2 supported on clays and Si-MCM-41 [11] ; transition metal chloride-supported mesoporous SBA-15 [12] ; Sb supporting K10 [13] ; solid superacid and silica-supported polytrifluoro-methanesulfosil oxane [14] ; H 2 SO 4 , HNO 3 and HClO 4 /metakaolinite [15] ; alkali metal salts and ammonium salts of keggin-type heteropolyacids [16] ; ionexchanged clays [17] ; clayzic [18] ; solid superacids based on sulfated ZrO 2 [19] ; HY [20] ; Fe, Ce, W-modified Hβ zeolites [21] ; H-ZSM-5 [22] and FeCl 3 , MnCl 2 , CoCl 2 , NiCl 2 , CuCl 2 , ZnCl 2 supported on acidic alumina [23] for the benzylation of benzene and other aromatic compounds. However, the reports on the use of basic catalysts for the benzylation reactions are scarce.…”