Porous silica materials have extensively been used for the immobilization of enzymes aiming at their use as biocatalysts or biosensors. This tutorial review will discuss the benefits and challenges of different immobilization techniques and will provide references to recent papers for further reading. Moreover, novel trends and unsolved problems will be introduced.

A short time after the discovery of ordered mesoporous materials, which possess unique features such as high specific surface area and pore volume, highly uniform pore distribution and tunable pore size, these materials have been prospected as promising carriers for enzyme immobilization. The immobilization of enzymes in ordered mesoporous materials has been studied for almost two decades. With the development of tailored ordered mesoporous materials and advances in enzyme technology, this field attracted increasing interest due to its quickly expanded functions and applications. This review focuses on the relation between the progress in ordered mesoporous materials and its corresponding contribution to enzyme immobilization as well as the applications of these materials in biocatalysis. The potential trends in the future development of this field are also pointed out.

This tutorial review discusses the challenges in evaluating the catalytic performance of a hierarchical catalyst compared to its parent zeolite using the Thiele modulus and the effectiveness factor.