Strontium hydroxyapatite was modified by two ways: (i) by chemical replacement of 'Sr' by copper (ii) by in-situ generation of copper on the surface of the apatite. Current synthetic route resulted in the formation of nanorods of the parent phase and the copper substituted phases of the formula Sr5-xCux(PO4)(3)OH (x=0, 0.01, 0.03 and 0.05). The copper modified phases exhibited high catalytic activity for the selective reduction of p-nitrophenol to p-aminophenol at room temperature. The rate of the reaction was found to be faster (3.63 x 10(-3) s(-1) and 1.27 x 10(-3) s(-1) for copper substituted and dispersed systems respectively) and comparable with other noble metal based catalyst systems studied for such conversion. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.