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 ∼37 wt.% or ∼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.