ISSN 0004-881X

Adsorption of Lysozyme and Trypsin by Modified MCM-41 with Post-Synthesis Hydrothermal Treatment and Hydrophobic Functionalisation

by Jing Yang¹, Geoffrey W. Stevens², Andrea J. O'Connor¹
1 School of Materials, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
2 Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia.

Abstract

The mesoporous molecular sieve MCM-41 synthesised by the normal hydrothermal method was modified by a post-synthesis hydrothermal treatment and hydrophobically functionalised using hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) for improving its stability. The MCM-41 samples had hexagonal structures and were used for adsorption of lysozyme and trypsin in MES buffer and the amounts adsorbed were determined by UV-visible spectroscopy. The amounts of lysozyme and trypsin adsorbed onto the HMDS-modified MCM-41 were higher than those on the post-synthesis hydrothermally treated MCM-41, taking into account the reduction in effective pore volume resulting from the HMDS treatment. This shows that the hydrophobicity of MCM-41 is important to the adsorption of enzymes, although the surface charge density of MCM-41 appears to be the key factor in determining the amounts of these two enzymes adsorbed under the conditions tested.

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