Nanoengineering of amino - functionalized mesoporous silica nanospheres as nanoreactors

Selective functionalization of mesoporous silica nanospheres (MSNs) is crucial for nanoengineering of MSNs. Herein, we have combined “surface-protected etching strategy” and “cationic surfactant assisted etching strategy” to prepare functionalized MSNs with externally attached amino groups. The externally attached NH2 groups endow the catalysts with excellent catalytic performance for nitroaldol reaction between nitromethane and benzaldehyde. In addition, those NH2-MSNs can also be used to support gold nanoparticles, which display very good catalytic performance for reduction of 4-nitrophenol. It can be envisioned that the synthesis protocol developed in this work could also be extended to nanoengineered MSNs, which provides opportunities for nanoreactors design. •“Surface-protected etching strategy” and “cationic surfactant assisted etching strategy” were combined to prepare MSNs.•Externally functionalized MSNs were synthesized.•The materials preparation method could be a general method.