Silica supported copper(II) chloride is prepared as a green heterogeneous catalyst for the synthesis of biologically and pharmaceutically important 3,4-dihydropyrimidin-2(1H)-ones under microwave and thermal conditions. The catalyst has been characterized by various instrumental techniques such as FTIR, SEM, TEM, TGA and MS. In addition, products are characterized by (HNMR)-H-1, IR,(CNMR)-C-13 and mass spectral data. The reaction of m-nitrobenzaldehyde, ethylacetoacetate and urea produced 5-(ethoxycarbonyl)4-(3-nitrophenyl)-6-methyl-3,4-dihydropyrimidin-2-(1H)-one and its structure has been determined using X-ray crystallography which also showed the inter-molecular H-bonding packing arrangement of molecules. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.