A kind of zinc-loaded silica-coated iron oxide (Zn-Fe3O4@SiO2) material was prepared by sol-gel and impregnation methods, and their textural and magnetic properties were characterized by SEM, TEM, XPS, Py-FTIR, VSM and EDS techniques. The as-prepared Zn-Fe3O4@SiO2 was used to catalyze the acidolysis of soybean lecithins (SLs) with short-chain fatty acids (propionic acid and butyric acid) to synthesize novel emulsifiers of short-chain structured phospholipids (SCSPLs). Otherwise, the main physicochemical properties of the targeted SCSPLs were studied as well. Resultingly, it was identified that the thus-synthesized core-shell Zn-Fe3O4@SiO2 magnetic microspheres contained amounts of active zinc moieties, which effectively facilitated the synthesis of SCSPLs. When the m(SLs)∶m(C3:0)∶m(C4:0)=1∶4∶4, the catalyst dosage was 5% of total mass of raw materials, the reaction temperature was 50 ℃, and the reaction time was 5 h, the maximum short-chain fatty acid incorporation of SCSPLs reached 78.15%±1.08% with 35.43%±0.62% of propionic acid and 42.72%±0.55% of butyric acid. Meanwhile, Zn-Fe3O4@SiO2 could be easily separated with an external magnetic field and be recycled for 5 times without obvious deactivation. Moreover, the targeted SCSPLs showed greatly enhanced emulsifying and dispersing properties, and oxidative stability in comparison with raw SLs.