Abstract

Fly ash, a by-product generated from coal combustion, contains a high content of metal oxides which are recognized as efficient adsorptive materials for phosphate-containing molecules. This indicates the potential application of fly ash as a solid-phase extraction adsorbent to nucleic acids, the phosphate-containing biopolymers. However, little effort has been made to study and exploit fly ash properties for extracting nucleic acids. In this study, long double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was used for examining the DNA adsorptivity of fly ash. On incubation with DNA, it required only two minutes for fly ash to adsorb DNA on the surface. This time was significantly shorter than other metal-oxide adsorbents such as Fe₃O₄@SiO₂ nanoparticles. In terms of desorption, DNA was rapidly eluted from the fly ash surface using phosphate buffer within a very short time of 5 minutes comparable to other metal oxide particles. Moreover, fly ash may be reused three times without significant loss of its adsorption capacity. Fly ash has been demonstrated to be a promising adsorbent in the DNA isolation process due to its low cost, reusability, and short-time extraction.

摘要

粉煤灰是煤燃烧产生的副产物，它含有高含量的金属氧化物，这些氧化物被认为是含磷酸盐分子的有效吸附材料。这表明粉煤灰作为固相萃取吸附剂在核酸（含磷酸盐的生物聚合物）上的潜在应用。然而，几乎没有努力研究和利用粉煤灰特性来提取核酸。在这项研究中，长双链脱氧核糖核酸（DNA）用于检查粉煤灰的DNA吸附性。与DNA一起孵育时，粉煤灰只需两分钟即可将DNA吸附在表面上。该时间明显短于其他金属氧化物吸附剂，例如Fe ₃ O ₄ @SiO ₂纳米粒子。就解吸而言，与其他金属氧化物颗粒相比，使用磷酸盐缓冲液在5分钟的极短时间内即可从飞灰表面迅速洗脱出DNA。此外，粉煤灰可以重复使用三次，而不会显着降低其吸附能力。粉煤灰由于其低成本，可重复使用性和短时提取作用，已被证明是DNA分离过程中有希望的吸附剂。