Introduction: Ruthenium compounds are widely studied for its biological activity. However, potent ruthenium drugs often have limited bioavailability due to its poor aqueous solubility. In order to assist the preparation of these hydrophobic compounds, a carrier or drug delivery agent is often introduced. Herein, we encapsulated a hydrophobic ruthenium polypyridyl complex [Ru(dppz)PIP]2+, (dppz = dipyrido-[3,2-a:20,30-c]phenazine, PIP = 2-phenylimidazo[4,5-f][1,10] phenanthroline) in mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN). Methods: The MSN was synthesized by using ionic liquid 1-hexadecylphenanthrolinium as a novel template and have 833.99 m2/g in surface area. The cytotoxicity of the synthesized ruthenium complex, MSN and MSN-loaded ruthenium was studied on Hela and A549 cancer cell lines. Results: MSN was non-toxic at lower dosage (