(CuY)-Y-I catalyst was prepared by heating the mixture of CuCl2 and acidic Y zeolite under flowing nitrogen and characterized by TG/DTG, XRD and elementary analysis techniques. The experimental result indicate that when the heating temperature was from 350 degrees C to 500 degrees C, the CuCl2 of the CuCl2 and acidic Y zeolite mixture sample decompose to CuCl and Cl-2 gas, then the produced CuCl reacted with the Bronsted acid center H+ of Y zeolite to form (CuY)-Y-I catalyst by the solid-state ion-exchanged reaction. The amount of ion-exchanged Cu-I in the (CuY)-Y-I catalyst reached the maximum of 0.1 mol/g when the heating temperature was 650 degrees C, and the catalyst exhibited the best catalytic activity, the conversion of methanol (C-MeOH), the selectivity and the space-time yield of dimethyl carbonate (S-DMC and STY) reached 4.36%, 74.55% and 97.32 mg/(g h), respectively. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.