Surface modification of a ceramic membrane by the SPCP-CVD method suitable for enzyme immobilization

Abstract

A novel method of surface modification of ceramic membrane using surface corona discharge-induced plasma chemical process-chemical vapor deposition (SPCP-CVD) was developed to introduce functional groups on a surface (e.g., for enzyme immobilization) as a gas-phase method. In this study, aminopropyl group was used as a model functional group to be introduced. In the experiments, effects of various conditions of surface modification on the introduced amount of aminopropyl groups were examined. As a result, it was confirmed that the amount of introduced amino groups can be controlled with the surface modification conditions such as adsorption time of the ingredient, discharge time in the SPCP reaction and the number of surface modification treatments. Additionally, an application of the surface modified ceramic membrane was tried for the supports of enzyme immobilization. As a result, it was confirmed that the enzyme was immobilized on the modified surface by using the introduced amino groups effectively. After the immobilization, the enzyme had a sufficiently high activity compared to the usual case of the covalent bonding.