Mn-N-C Nanoreactor Prepared through Heating Metalloporphyrin Supported in Mesoporous Hollow Silica Spheres.

Mesoporous hollow silica spheres have been drawing tremendous interest due to their special structure and properties and potential applications. Here we synthesized a nanoreactor via ship-in-bottle method, encapsulated with Mn-N-C by heating manganese porphyrin in nanocages of mesoporous hollow silica spheres. And manganese porphyrin is first encapsulated and confined in the hollow spheres. The nanoreactors are investigated through transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high angle annular dark field scanning TEM (HAADF-STEM) as well as nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms. The results demonstrate that the mesoporous hollow spheres with well-defined morphology hold large pore volumes (0.29-0.46 cm3 g-1), high specific surface areas (428-600 m2 g-1) and uniform pore sizes (4.0 nm). In addition, the ethylbenzene oxidation is conducted in order to explore the catalytic performance of the nanoreactors. And the nanoreactors are observed to possess remarkable catalytic activity and attractive stability for ethylbenzene oxidation, which should be ascribed to the special architectures and confined effect.