Patent ID: 7084088

Claim:
A Lewis acid catalyst composition comprising a mixed medium and a Lewis acid catalyst, said mixed medium comprising (A) a fluorinated compound medium and (B) a non-fluorinated compound medium which can be phase-separated from the fluorinated compound medium (A), said Lewis acid catalyst being at least one compound selected from the group consisting of compounds respectively represented by the following formulae (1) and (2): [(R f 1 SO 2 )(R f 2 SO 2 )N] n M (1), and [(R f 1 SO 2 )(R f 2 SO 2 )(R f 3 SO 2 )C] n M (2) wherein: each of R f 1 to R f 3 independently represents a substituent (α) selected from the group consisting of a perfluorinated, saturated or unsaturated C 7 –C 20 hydrocarbon group containing in the skeleton thereof at least one heteroatom selected from the group consisting of a nitrogen atom and an oxygen atom and a partially substituted derivative thereof, or a substituent (β) selected from the group consisting of a perfluorinated, saturated or unsaturated C 1 –C 16 hydrocarbon group containing no heteroatom and a partially substituted derivative thereof, provided that, in formula (1) above, at least one member selected from the group consisting of R f 1 and R f 2 is said substituent (α) and, in formula (2) above, at least one member selected from the group consisting of R f 1 to R f 3 is said substituent (α), wherein, in said partially substituted derivative in the definition of each of said substituents (α) and (β), a part of the fluorine atoms in said perfluorinated hydrocarbon group is replaced by at least one member selected from the group consisting of a hydrogen atom and a halogen atom exclusive of a fluorine atom, provided that, in each of said substituents (α) and (β), a part of the fluorine atoms bonded to a carbon atom directly bonded to the —SO 2 group is not replaced by a hydrogen atom; M represents an atom selected from the group consisting of transition metals including rare earth metals, gallium, indium, thallium, silicon, germanium, tin, lead, antimony and bismuth; and n is an integer equivalent to the valence of M.