Ordered mesoporous silica cubic particles decorated with silver nanoparticles: a highly active and recyclable heterogeneous catalyst for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol.

In this work, using a modified Stöber process, we synthesized ordered mesoporous silica cubic particles (OMS-C) and prepared a nanocatalyst (Ag-OMS-C) based on OMS-C with a high surface area via an in situ auto-reduction strategy. The as-prepared Ag-OMS-C nanocomposites demonstrated open mesopores (3.51 nm), a large specific surface area (540 m2 g-1) and a high pore volume (0.