Porosity and acidity of molecular sieve Al-MCM-41 (ca. 30 Angstrom pore dia
meter) plays a crucial role in the synthesis of novel calix(4) pyrroles; fo
r the first time, Al-MCM-41 has been used as a solid acid catalyst to produ
ce a number of calix( 4) pyrroles with good selectivity and yields where ze
olite HY (ca. 7.6 Angstrom pore diameter) yields mainly the linear chain di
mer and no cyclic products.