Nippon Shokubai Co., Ltd.

Kazuo Sagi

Yuichi Kita

Yasutaka Sumida

Miaki Asakawa

Mitsuhiro Kitajima

Yoshiyuki Takahashi

The present invention provides: a solid catalyst which enables a person to simply and efficiently carry out an etherification reaction; and a process by which an ether compound is simply and efficiently produced using the solid catalyst. The solid catalyst is a first solid catalyst comprising at least one rare earth element, or is a second solid catalyst comprising a metallic compound which includes a metal atom and a nonmetal atom bonded to the metal atom, wherein the metallic compound has molecular orbitals including: at least one orbital (L) having an energy of E.sub.L (eV) which satisfies E.sub.LUMO .ltoreq.E.sub.L .ltoreq.(E.sub.LUMO +0.05) wherein E.sub.LUMO is an energy (eV) of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital around the metal atom; and at least one orbital (H) having an energy of E.sub.H (eV) which satisfies (E.sub.HOMO -0.02).ltoreq.E.sub.H .ltoreq.E.sub.HOMO wherein E.sub.HOMO is an energy (eV) of the highest occupied molecular orbital around the nonmetal atom; wherein at least one of orbitals (L) and at least one of orbitals (H) are both orientational. The process for producing an ether compound comprises the step of carrying out a reaction between an organic compound having a hydroxyl group and an unsaturated carboxylic acid compound or an epoxy compound in the presence of either or both of the first and the second solid catalyst, thus forming the ether compound.

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Suita, Japan

Kazuo Sagi