Synthesis of surface imprinted polymers based on wrinkled flower-like magnetic graphene microspheres with favorable recognition ability for BSA

Nowadays, the employing of molecular imprinting technique in the analysis and separation of proteins from complex biological samples has been widely favored by researchers. To enrich the types of surface protein imprinted materials and expand the application fields of graphene materials, novel surface molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs) based on magnetic graphene microspheres Fe3O4@[email protected] are first synthesized in this paper. Fe3O4@[email protected] are prepared by oxidative self-polymerization of dopamine on the surface of magnetic graphene (Fe3O4@rGO) composite microspheres. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is selected as protein template. Fe3O4@rGO microspheres with wrinkled flower-like structure are obtained by compounding Fe3O4 and graphene oxide in an appropriate ratio via the method of high-temperature reduction self-assembly. The microspheres exhibit promising dispersibility, high external surface area, rich pore structure, and sufficient magnetic properties. These advantages not only prevent the agglomeration of imprinted microspheres in the aqueous phase, which is conducive to contact and static adsorption, but also increase the amount of protein imprinting. Additionally, sufficient magnetic properties ensure fast and effective separation of the adsorbents. While the adsorption capacity is increased, the separation procedure becomes simple. The binding capacity of Fe3O4@[email protected] for BSA can reach 317.58 mg/g within 60 min, and the imprinting factor (IF) is 4.24. More importantly, Fe3O4@[email protected] can specifically recognize the target BSA from the mixed proteins and the actual sample. There is no significant decrease in the adsorption amount, IF, and magnetic properties after eight runs. It is promising to be used in the separation of proteins from the actual biological samples.