Development of the highly active and stable heterogeneous transition metal catalysts is of great importance in synthetic chemistry. Herein, zeolite Beta nanoparticles assembled Cu catalyst (Cu-Beta-Nano) with high external surface area was directly synthesized, and it exhibits excellent catalytic activity and good recyclability in cross-coupling of aldehydes and disulfides for synthesis of thioesters. The high activity and good recyclability of the Cu-Beta-Nano catalyst should be attributed to the high external surface area of the catalyst and highly dispersed active copper species in the zeolite. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.