A facile direct route to synthesize large-pore mesoporous silica incorporating high CuO loading with special catalytic property

CuO-loaded large-pore mesoporous SBA-15 silica was synthesized by a simple and efficient direct route in an acid media. Owing to a mesophase transformation behavior induced by inorganic salts, cubic mesostructued silica was also obtained in this system. Characterization of these mesostructured materials by the XRD, TEM, BET, FT-IR, UV-VIS, XPS, CV and ICP-AES showed that similar to 37 wt.% or similar to 45 wt.% copper oxide was directly introduced into hexagonal or cubic large-pore mesoporous silica, respectively. The mechanism study revealed that in-situ formation of a large amount of copper oxalate was the key step in this synthesis. The catalytic hydroxylation of benzene to phenol reveals that the direct-synthesized mesoporous CuO/silica showed the special catalytic property in comparison to the post-impregnated samples. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.