Self-Driven BSA Surface Imprinted Magnetic Tubular Carbon Nanofibers: Fabrication and Adsorption Performance

The development of materials with high adsorption capacity and selectivity, simple operation, and short adsorption equilibrium time are still a focus in the domain of imprinting techniques. Based on this, a novel water-compatible imprinted material (SIPMTF) on the surface of magnetic carriers is prepared by one-pot method. Surface imprinted magnetic tubular carbon nanofibers (SIPMTFs) are based on magnetic tubular carbon nanofibers (MTFs). Dopamine (DA) is selected as functional monomer. Due to the magnetic properties, SIPMTFs can efficiently separate high-purity proteins with energy savings compared with other methods. MTFs are composed of carbon nanofibers with porous tube walls and Fe nanoparticles loaded inside the tube. This constitution endows SIPMTFs with self-driven adsorption properties and magnetic responsiveness. Thereby, these structures simplify the separation process while increasing the adsorption amount. In addition, the adsorption speed is accelerated. The adsorption capacity of SIPMTFs for bovine serum albumin (BSA) reaches 430.39 mg/g in 30 min. The satisfactory imprinting factor (IF) is 2.85. More significantly, the selectivity coefficients of SIPMTFs for lysozyme (Lyz), human serum albumin (HSA), ovalbumin (OVA), and cytochrome C (Cyt C) are 4.48, 6.88, 3.49, and 4.55. Furthermore, SIPMTFs could selectively rebind BSA from fetal bovine serum (FBS) and exhibit excellent regenerative properties, which fits well with the concept of green sustainable development. These results indicate that MTFs can be used as a novel class of carriers in the domain of molecular imprinting to isolate and purify proteins.