Preparation and Catalytic Activity of Manganese Doped Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles with Large Pore Size

An effective post hydrothermal treatment strategy has been developed to dope highly dispersed manganese catalytic centers into the framework of mesoporous silica, to keep the particle size in nanometric scale, and meanwhile to expand the pore size of the synthesized mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs). Characterizations by XRD, BET, SEM and TEM show that the synthesized samples (Mn MSNs) are long period ordered with particles size about 100 nm and a relatively large pore size of about 4.0 nm. Observation by XPS and Raman spectra demonstrates that the introduced manganese active centers are highly dispersed within the framework of MSNs. The synthesized nanocatalysts show an excellent catalytic performance for the liquid oxidation of ethylbenzene with tert butyl hydrogen peroxide.