In this work, in situ encapsulation of ibuprofen (IBU) was explored preliminarily using the emulsion sol-gel method. IBU-containing porous silica nanospheres (300-400 nm) of varied morphologies were fabricated simply by tailoring the amount of IOU in the starting solution. In the reaction system, IBU exists in the form of IBU- under basic conditions, which has strong electrostatic interaction with CTA(+), and thus could be regarded as cosurfactant to regulate the morphology and structure of silica nanospheres. Such morphology can be maintained even after calcination or IBU release in phosphate-buffered saline. The current results may shed light on the design and construction of new functional nanoarchitectures, which may be useful for drug delivery, separation, adsorption, catalysis, etc. (c) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.