In this work, nanoporous sodium montmorillonite clay (Na+-MMT) was used as a support for the immobilization of various thiazolium salts. The composite catalyst was used for preparation of 1,3-dihydroxyacetone in the formose reaction. The structure and morphology of the thiazolium-MMT was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The catalytic performance of this immobilized thiazolium salts were probed for the formose reaction. The effects of reaction time, reaction temperature, different catalysts, and the amount of composite catalyst on the yield of dihydroxyacetone were investigated. The optimized procedure as follows: the consumption of formaldehyde is 30 mmol, thiazolium- MMT catalyst is 1.35 g, at 120 ℃ reaction 30 min, the yield of DHA is 62.3%. Also, this catalyst can be reused three times with satisfied catalytic activity.