The design and synthesis of various porous solids have been gaining much
attention in recent years owing to their diverse chemistry and widespread application
potential in various fields. In particular, the synthesis and functionalization of highly
ordered, uniform mesoporous silica based material such as SBA-15 are attaining
extensive popularity among researchers due to their fascinating properties. It exhibits
very high surface area, high thermal and hydrothermal stability and more importantly it
possesses two dimensional hexagonally ordered cylindrical mesochannels that can be
used as nano reactors for embedding catalytic species such as nanoparticles, complexes
and heteropoly acids etc. The encapsulation/immobilization of these catalytically active
species onto SBA-15 can be achieved through functionalization of the surface with
various functional groups which creates anchors for capturing these species. The
resulting encapsulated materials act as superior catalytic system for various important
multicomponent reactions (MCRs). This MCRs approach is an integral part of
numerous research efforts involved in the drug development programs to get synthetic
targets in expeditious way. Some of the targeted compounds such as
dihydropyrimidinones, propargylamines, spiroindolines, β-amino carbonyl compounds
etc. have shown their biological activities as drug molecules. Recently, various
composite materials of SBA-15 were successfully employed as heterogeneous catalysts
for these types of reactions. Reusability and selectivity are the certain advantages of
this present catalytic system that makes it superior to the other catalytic system
available in the literature. A discussion along with examples of application of SBA-15
composites for MCRs will be described in this chapter.
Keywords: Biological activities, Catalysts, Encapsulation, Heteropoly acids,
Hexagonal, Hydrothermal, Immobilization, Ion exchange, Mechanism, Mesoporous,
Metal complexes, Multicomponent reactions, Nanoparticles, Organicspecies, Polymers, Self-assemble, Sensing, Silicate, Solid acids, Solid bases, Sol-gel,
Sorption, Surface functionalization, Synergistic effects, SBA-15, Template.