A new specific metal ion chelated‐poly(N‐vinylimidazole) gel sorbents for albumin adsorption‐desorption

Poly(N‐vinylimidazole) (PVIm) hydrogels were prepared by γ‐irradiating binary mixtures of N‐vinylimidazole‐water in a ⁶⁰Co‐γ source having 4.5 kGy/h dose rate. These affinity gels having different swelling ratio of Cu(II)‐chelated, Co(II)‐chelated and plain PVIm in acetate buffer were used in the albumin adsorption studies. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) adsorption on these gels from aqueous solutions containing different amounts of BSA at different pH adjusted with acetate and phosphate buffer was investigated in batch reactors. The adsorption capacities of BSA on/in the gels were decreased dramatically by increasing the ionic strength (I) adjusting with NaCl. BSA adsorption capacities of the metal ion‐chelated gels were higher than the plain PVIm gel even if the swelling ratio of the metal ion‐chelated gels was very low comparing to the PVIm gel. The rigidity of the metal ion‐chelated gel is very high and it can be used for the column applications. More than 95% of BSA were desorbed in 3 h in the desorption medium containing KSCN for PVIm gel and EDTA for metal ion‐chelated gels. These results indicate that PVIm and metal ion‐chelated PVIm gels are very efficient to remove BSA and the different metal ion‐chelated PVIm gels show different affinity for BSA or biomolecules.