LAUSR

Abstract Hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) as an indispensable method for protein purification has attracted considerable attentions of researchers as well as biopharmaceutical industries. However, the operation pressure-drop and flow rate of the typical HIC porous resin beads are less than satisfactory. To address these issues, composite nanofibrous membranes (CNFMs) with controllable wettability have been developed by multi-component electrospinning of polystyrene/polyacrylonitrile (PS/PAN), and further by regulating the solution properties and introducing SiO2 nanoparticles in, CNFMs with proper wettability and large surface area of 23.6 m−2 g−1 were fabricated. The obtained CNFMs showed a high static adsorption capacity of 78 mg g−1 and fast adsorption process within 30 min. Additionally, a high saturation dynamic binding capacity of 39.6 mg ml−1 was obtained under a low pressure-drop of 200 Pa, which surpassed the commercial HIC membrane media. Moreover, these membranes have a selectivity toward the protein with higher hydrophobicity, and proteins adsorbed on the membranes can be eluted with 10 wt% ethanol aqueous solution. Therefore, such a successful fabrication of nanofibrous membranes with outstanding hydrophobic protein adsorption performance could provide a promising platform to prepare economical and inspiring HIC media in the future.