Immobilization of Cyanocobalamin within SBA-1 Mesoporous Silica: An Effective Heterogeneous Catalyst

By development of environment friendly technologies, preparation of new heterogeneous catalysts by intercalation of biomimetic transition-metal catalysts on an insoluble polymer and porous materials has received a lot of attention. In recent years, new families of ordered mesoporous silica materials, called SBAs, have initiated an intensive research effort toward fixation of drugs, chiral metal complexes, and organometallic moieties. The resulting heterogeneous mesostructured system may be effectively applied for catalysis, drug delivery, purification, and environmental pollution control [1–3].SBA-1 is a three dimensional cubic mesoporous molecular sieve (space group Pm3n) with cage type pores [4-5]. It is synthesized by under strong acidic conditions, using cetyltriethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as surfactant. It can efficiently be applied to immobilize biomolecules such as cyanocobalamin or vitamin B12 for drug delivery purposes. Furthermore, cyanocobalamin is an active and selective catalyst for oxidation of organic substrates and by its fixation within SBA-1, one can effectively combine the advantages of homogenous catalysts (high activity, selectivity, etc.) with the benefits of its heterogeneous counterpart (easy removal from reaction mixtures, recycling/reuse, thermal stability, and etc