“Clickable” SBA-15 mesoporous materials: synthesis, characterization and their reaction with alkynes

SBA-15 mesoporous silica has been functionalized with azidopropyl groups through both one-pot co-condensation and post-synthetic grafting. For both these methodologies, azidopropyltriethoxysilane was used to introduce the azidopropyl groups. The azidopropyl modified SBA-15 material synthesized by one-pot co-condensation had hexagonal crystallographic order, pore diameters up of 50 Å, and the content of azidopropyl groups was found to be 1.3 mmol g−1. The presence of the azidopropyl group was confirmed by multinuclear (13C, 29Si) solid state NMR and IR spectroscopy. Both these materials underwent very efficient Cu(I)-catalyzed azide alkyne “click” reaction (CuAAC) with a variety of alkynes. Nearly 85% of the azide present in the SBA-15 material was converted to the corresponding triazole when propargyl alcohol was used as the substrate. This methodology was also used to incorporate mannose into SBA-15. Incubation of this mannose labeled SBA-15 with fluorescein labeled Concanavalin-A led to the formation of a fluorescent silica-protein hybrid material. The ease of synthesis for the azide labeled SBA-15 material together with its ability to undergo very efficient chemoselective CuAAC in water would make it a very attractive platform for the development of covalently anchored catalysts, enzymes and sensors.