Lightweight, Environmentally Friendly, and Underwater Superelastic 3D-Architectured Aerogels for Efficient Protein Separation

Abstract

Highly purified protein adsorbents with simultaneous environmental friendliness and high performance are desirable in the biotechnological and biopharmaceutical industries. Herein, the cellulose nanofiber aerogels functionalized with sodium alginate (CNF/SA composite aerogels) featuring aligned 3D porous architecture have been developed via a freeze–drying and Ca2+ cross-linking process. The CNF/SA composite aerogels demonstrated superb underwater structural stability and shape-recovery property originating from the robust aligned porous skeletal structure. Moreover, the resultant CNF/SA composite aerogels with naturally abundant carboxyl groups exhibited unique selectivity toward positive proteins, demonstrating synchronously excellent static (1756 mg g–1) and dynamic (1146 mg g–1) lysozyme adsorption capabilities and high processing flux (21521 L m–2 h–1, gravity driven), which are superior to those of previously reported adsorbents and Sartorius Sartobind commercial membranes. Furthermore, the CNF/SA composite aerogels possessed stable recyclability, easy operation, and good environmental friendliness, demonstrating a bright practical application performance. This work sheds light on a promising direction for developing high-performance protein adsorbents and utilizing sustainable natural biomaterials in bio-separation applications.

Fabrication of 3D aligned porous nanocellulose-based aerogel for rapid enrichment of the histidine-containing polypeptides

“…Ultimately, the M 2+ loaded in S-TOCN-PVA composite aerogel (M 2+ /TOCN-PVA) was obtained by solidliquid separation. The effects of the initial concentration of metal ions (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 mg/mL), different incubation times (5,10,20,40,40, 60, 10, 100, 120 min) and pH (4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0) were optimized.…”

Butane Tetracarboxylic Acid Grafted on Polymeric Nanofibrous Aerogels for Highly Efficient Protein Absorption and Separation

“…Zhou [17] modified silk fibroin/cellulose blend NFMs with sodium-3-sulfobenzoate under mild conditions for the adsorption of lysozyme (636.00 mg/g). However, some intrinsic limitations of two-dimensional (2D) membranes, such as small pore size, narrow pore channels, and difficulty in assembling large-sized chromatography columns, can cause unsatisfactory protein capture performance [18,19]. Alternatively, nanofibers also can be presented to construct aerogels with three-dimensional (3D) porous skeletal structures [20][21][22].…”

Porous carboxymethyl cellulose nanocrystalline imprinted composite aerogels for selective adsorption of gadolinium

“…These proteins are composed of 18 amino acids, most of which have strong polar side chains such as carboxyl, hydroxyl and amino groups, allowing easy cross-linking, copolymerization and blending with other polymers to form improved biodegradable and environmentally friendly materials (Dong et al, 2021). Sodium alginate (SA) is an important anionic polymer in nature, derived from brown algae, and has been widely used in wound dressings (Chen et al, 2021), tissue engineering, and selective protein isolation due to its abundance, reproducibility, good biocompatibility, and low toxicity (Liu et al, 2023). SA with natural anionic carboxylic acid groups can adsorb cationic rare earth elements well, and SA can also form a honeycomb-like porous 3D interoperable pore structure.…”