Sponges with large protein adsorption capacity are highly desired in various fields such as biosensors, biofuel cells, biocatalysis, and protein chromatography. However, the use of environmentally friendly materials and mass production still face enormous challenges. Herein, a novel and facile method to fabricate an environmentally friendly monolithic cellulose/chitosan composite sponge (CECSS) with remarkable performance is designed using the mature viscose process. The obtained highly efficient adsorption sponge exhibits a hierarchical porous structure with open-pore structures with a diameter range of 200–1000 μm and small micro/nanocellular structures (0.5–2 μm), which endow it with remarkable porosity (62.95%) and water adsorption capacity (1409%). Based on the abovementioned unique porous structure and reactive groups of chitosan, the CECSS exhibits a high bovine serum albumin adsorption capacity of 200.56 mg/g at pH 5.5 for 10 h. In addition, the adsorption of the CECSS can be well described by the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and the Langmuir isotherm model. This work provides a new sponge-forming process for the fields of protein adsorption, which may achieve the production of natural protein adsorbents at the industrial level.

中文翻译：

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纤维素/壳聚糖复合海绵可有效吸附蛋白质

在生物传感器、生物燃料电池、生物催化和蛋白质色谱等各个领域都非常需要具有大蛋白质吸附能力的海绵。然而，环保材料的使用和大规模生产仍面临巨大挑战。在此，采用成熟的粘胶工艺设计了一种新颖且简便的方法来制造具有卓越性能的环保型单片纤维素/壳聚糖复合海绵（CECSS）。获得的高效吸附海绵呈现分级多孔结构，孔径范围为200-1000 μm的开孔结构和小微/纳米细胞结构（0.5-2 μm），使其具有显着的孔隙率（62.95%）和水吸附容量 (1409%)。基于上述壳聚糖独特的多孔结构和活性基团，CECSS 在 pH 5.5 条件下，在 10 小时内表现出 200.56 mg/g 的高牛血清白蛋白吸附能力。此外，CECSS 的吸附可以通过伪二级动力学模型和朗缪尔等温线模型很好地描述。该工作为蛋白质吸附领域提供了一种新的海绵形成工艺，有望在工业水平上实现天然蛋白质吸附剂的生产。