Flexible electrospun cellulose fibers as an affinity packing material for the separation of bovine serum albumin

Abstract

Flexible, well-dispersed and continuous 100-nm diameter cellulose fibers were prepared from an ionic liquid solvent by a novel dry-jet wet-electrospinning process. The ribbon fibers formed were chemically activated and an affinity dye, cibacron blue (CB) was immobilized at 0.22 g CB/g dry fibers loading to the surface of these fibers. The resulting affinity matrix was packed into a chromatography column and the adsorption, desorption, and specificity of this matrix for bovine serum albumin (BSA) was studied. These electrospun fibers had a BSA binding capacity of 230 mg/g, nearly twice that of CB-immobilized 100-um beads and over ten-fold higher capacity that CB-immobilized cellulose fibers prepared by a conventional electrospinning process. The results of this work suggest that chromatography supports of flexible, well-dispersed, continuous nanofibers may offer advantages over conventional supports in affinity separations.