The protection of carbonyl groups as acetals or ketals and their subsequent regenerations is an important strategy in a multi-stage organic synthesis.l Numerous attempts to improve the efficiency of this process have been investigated and a number of strategies, such as the use of protic acids, Lewis acids, solid acids and ionic liquids as the catalyst, with 1,2- diols, 1,3-diols, 1,2-dithiols, 1,3-dithiols and orthoesters as the protecting reagents,2 have been reported. ...