One-Step Synthesis of Sustainable Montmorillonite-Supported, Copper-Doped Magnetic Nanoparticles for Highly Specific Separation of His-Rich Proteins
Yingying Niu, Yuhai Tang, Ruixia Gao, Xiaoyi Chen, Yue Wang, Yingying Gao, Sijie Zhang, Sameer Hussain, Yi Hao, Sicen Wang
Abstract
Immobilized metal affinity (IMA) magnetic adsorbents exhibit an exciting preference for histidine (His)-rich proteins, whereas their application was limited due to the leaching of copper ions and poor dispersibility, greatly influencing their sustainability and adsorption performance. Herein, we propose a novel IMA adsorbent based on montmorillonite (MMT)-supported, copper-doped magnetic nanoparticles (Fe3O4−Cu/MMT) for highly specific recognition and separation of His-rich proteins. In the process, Fe3O4−Cu/MMT nanomaterials were synthesized by a one-step solvothermal method. The obtained adsorbents exhibit enhanced adsorption capacity (758.7 mg g–1) and selectivity (SF < 0.2) toward bovine hemoglobin (BHb) as a model derived from good dispersity, making more anchor sites exposed. Also, the adsorbent can be facilely regenerated with negligible leakage of copper ions and no need for re-incubation in a metal salt solution, maintaining high performance for six cycles. Furthermore, bovine blood was opted as a realistic specimen for evaluating the adsorption capability of the proposed adsorbent, emphasizing its good practicality for His-rich protein separation.