Amphiphilic silica is synthesized with the simultaneous introduction of two kinds of polar and weakly polar organic groups on its surface using a one-step reverse-phase microemulsion method. The obtained materials present as nanospheres with a size of ≈100 nm. A high percentage (≈80%) of silicon species can be exposed and the amount of surface SiOH increased by above 50% with the introduction of organic groups. Plenty of groups, including polar groups (3-aminopropyl and hydroxyl) and weakly polar group (n-propyl) coexisting on the surface, enable the material to show amphiphilicity. This amphiphilic material can show an excellent property for the removal of various organic dyes from the aqueous solution, and the maximum adsorption capacity of Congo Red,

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Glycosylation of proteins regulates the life activities of organisms, while abnormalities of glycosylation sites and glycan structures occur in various serious diseases such as cancer. A separation and enrichment procedure is necessary to realize the analysis of the glycoproteins/peptides by mass spectrometry, for which the surface hydrophilicity of the material is an important factor for the separation and enrichment performance. In the present work, under the premise of an obvious increase of the surface silicon exposure (79.6%), the amount of surface polar silanol is remarkably generated accompanying the introduction of the active amino groups on the surface of silica. The microscopic hydrophilicity, which is determined with water physicaladsorption measurements and can directly reflect the interaction of water molecules and the intrinsic surface of the material, maximally increases by 44%. This microscopically highly hydrophilic material shows excellent enrichment ability for glycopeptides, such as extremely low detection limits (0.01 fmol μL −1 ), remarkable selectivity (1:8000), and size exclusion effects (1:8000). A total of 677 quantifiable intact N-glycopeptides were identified from the serum of patients with cervical cancer, and the glycosylation site and glycan structure were analyzed in depth, indicating that this novel material can show a broad practical application in cervical cancer diagnosis.

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