Preparation of monodisperse large-porous silica microspheres with polymer microspheres as the templates for protein separation

Abstract

In this study, the monodisperse large-porous silica microspheres were successfully synthesized with polymer microspheres as the templates and characterized. The functionalization of the PGMA-EDMA microspheres was carried out with TEPA to generate amino groups. Subsequently, TEOS was readily hydrolyzed to form Si-containing low molecular weight species with ammonia as a catalyst. The low molecular weight species could be attracted by the amino groups and deposited into the functionalized PGMA-EDMA microspheres to form polymer/silica hybrid microspheres. Finally, the monodisperse large-porous silica microspheres were obtained with controllable morphology and structure after calcination to remove the templates. Using this method, the agglomeration of the hybrid microspheres was overcome, and the yield of 95.7% of the monodisperse large-porous silica microspheres was achieved with high concentration of polymer templates. The resulting large-porous silica microspheres were modified with ODS and the chromatographic evaluation was performed by separating the proteins and the digest of BSA. The high column efficiency and good reproducibility suggested that the large-porous silica microspheres could be used as a matrix for protein separation.