“…Acid catalyzed acylation mainly requires polymeric acids [12,13]; and metal chlorides [14][15][16], metal triflates such as Sc(OTf)3/Bi(OTf)3/Li(OTf)3 [17][18][19], metal perchlorates (LiClO4 /BiOClO4) [20,21] have also been utilized as Lewis acid catalysts for acylation of alcohols. Other reagents such as I2 [22,23], [bmIm][dca] ionic liquid [24], solid supported reagents like HClO4-SiO2 [25], Py/basic alumina [26], neutral Al2O3 [27], Clay [28,29], ZrOCl2·8H2O [30] polyphosphate ester [31] and very recently ZnO [32], Sm [33] and Mg(NTf2)2 [34] have been employed for the same purpose. In this paper, we are describing our work on the successful use of non-toxic, environmentally benign and inexpensive zinc dust as a catalyst for the acylation of phenols, thiophenol, amines and alcohols with acid chlorides.…”