Preparation of a Poly(ionic liquid)-Functionalized Cellulose Aerogel and Its Application in Protein Enrichment and Separation

Abstract In this work, a novel poly(ionic liquid) with 1-vinyl-3-aminopropyl imidazolium cations was designed and used to modify cellulose aerogels via Schiff base reaction. The poly(ionic liquid) modified cellulose aerogels (PIL-CA) exhibited a well-interconnected porous structure and a high porosity of 86.2%. A zeta potential study showed the PIL-CA had a strong positive potential of more than 65 mV when its pH was below 6. Furthermore, after 350 min of adsorption experiments, the PIL-CA showed a superior adsorption capacity of 918 ± 8 mg g −1 towards bovine serum albumin (BSA) at pH 6 when its concentration was 1.5 mg m L −1 . Finally, the PIL-CA was employed for the selective separation of target protein from a real serum sample, obtaining the BSA with high purity of over 98%.