The reaction of benzaldehyde with aliphatic glycols was performed over Al-MCM-41 with various Si/Al ratios. The effects of various parameters like temperature, mole ratio, reaction time and catalyst amount on the formation of acetals were optimized. The mesoporous Al-MCM-41 (Si/Al ratio 36,57,81 and 108) were synthesized by hydrothermal method. The synthesized catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherm (BET), thermo gravimetric-differential thermal analysis (TGA-DTA) and TEM techniques. The acidity of the catalysts was measured by pyridine adsorption followed by FT-IR analysis. TEM analysis showed that the honeycomb-like regular arrangement of hexagonal pores on the molecular sieves. The highly hydrophobic Al-MCM-41 (108) showed higher activity than the other Si/Al ratios. The activity of the catalysts showed the following order Al-MCM-41 (108) > Al-MCM-41 (81) > Al-MCM-41 (57) > Al-MCM-41 (36). The hydrophobicity and nucleophilicity of the glycols highly influences the conversion of benzaldehyde, it followed the order; hexylene glycol (HG) > propylene glycol (PG) > ethylene glycol (EG). The results showed that mole ratio of 1:3 (aldehyde: glycol) gave higher yield than the other mole ratios. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.