In the first project, pine cone activated carbon/CdS/Cu(II) (PCAC/CdS/Cu(II)) composites were prepared by coprecipitation method. The photocatalyst was characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The photocatalytic activity of the photocatalyst was evaluated by photocatalytic degradation of acid orange (AO) aqueous solution under visible light and UV irradiation.The results showed that the photocatalytic activity of the pine cone activated carbon/CdS/Cu(II) is much higher than that of pine cone activated carbon/CdS on the photodegradation process. The effect of operational parameters such as the amount of photocatalyst, initial concentration of azo dye, pH, on the photocatalytic activity of the photocatalyst were also investigated. In the second project, FeCl 3 /HAP was prepared by impregnation method. Then the catalyst was characterized by TEM, FT-IR, SEM, XRD and UV-vis and was tested for Friedel-Crafts acylation. Effective parameters such as time, temperature, %w of FeCl 3 , amount of the catalyst were optimized.