Abstract: Cation exchange resin as catalyst for the preparation of isobornyl acetate by the esterification of camphene is widely used in industry. However this type of catalyst is easy to lose its activity during the reaction. In this paper, the deactivation mechanism and regeneration method of the catalyst (CT800) were investigated. It showed that the deactivation of catalyst was mainly caused by the overlay of polymer byproducts on the resin activity centers. The deactivated catalyst can be regenerated by washing with ethanol. The activity of the regenerated catalyst is close to that of fresh one. This proves that this generation method is effective.