pH/temperature - sensitive imprinted ionic poly(N-tert-butylacrylamide-co-acrylamide/maleic acid) hydrogels for bovine serum albumin

In this study, we have prepared pH/temperature-sensitive imprinted ionic poly(N-tert-butylacrylamide-co-acrylamide/maleic acid) [P(TBA-co-AAm/MA)] hydrogels for bovine serum albumin (BSA) by using molecular imprinting method. BSA adsorption from aqueous BSA solutions was investigated with two types of hydrogel systems prepared by non-imprinted and imprinted methods. Hydrogels imprinted with BSA showed higher adsorption capacity and specificity for BSA than hydrogels prepared by the usual procedure. At all studied conditions, the highest BSA adsorption was observed in the hydrogel imprinted with 8.63 wt.-% BSA. In addition, the imprinted hydrogels exhibited both for good selectivity BSA and high adsorption rate depending on the number of BSA-sized cavities. Adsorption studies showed that other stimuli, such as pH, temperature and initial BSA concentration also influenced the BSA adsorption capacity of both non-imprinted and imprinted hydrogels.