Synthesis of large-pore mesostructured cellular foam silica spheres for the adsorption of biomolecules

Mesostructured cellular foam (MCF) silica spheres with different textual parameters were synthesized using a triblock copolymer as a template. The effects of acid concentration and aging time on the window size and morphology were discussed. Besides, the adsorption performances of lysozyme and bovine serum albumin on the blank MCF with different window size and aminopropyl-modified MCFs were studied. The adsorption capacity and rates were shown to be dependent on the window size and surface chemical properties of the adsorbents. In particular, the MCF with window size of 15.2 nm showed fast adsorption for lysozyme with an adsorption capacity of 500 mg/g in 10 min. Furthermore, it has been shown that MCF spheres are potential materials in the separation of biomolecules because of their chemical tunable surface and molecular sieve properties.