Various adsorbents are available for the removal of heavy and toxic metals, silica-based materials have been the most popular. Recently, there has been considerable interest for the modification of organic moieties and mesostructured materials to enable their use as efficient adsorbent for metal removal. In this study, here we are reporting successful incorporation of tetrakis(4-carboxyphenyl)porphyrin (TCPP) in mesoporous silica by the post-synthetic method. TCPP-SBA-15 has been found to be an effective material for the removal of Cu(II) from aqueous solution due to the chelating nature of the porphyrin-bridging group. A comparative study on adsorption of copper(II) ion over NH2-SBA-15 silica and TCPP-SBA-15 was performed. The results show that TCPP-SBA-15 material has higher adsorption capacity than NH2-SBA-15 silica and it reaches the adsorption maxima around 13 mmol g(-1). (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.