LAUSR

Abstract The development of separation and purification materials with high adsorption performance and large processing throughput is of great importance. Regenerated cellulose nanofibers membranes (RC-NFM) with average fiber diameter 300 nm were fabricated and functionalized via grafting 4-vinyl pyridine (4-VP) on the cellulose (RC-VP) using a chemically immobilized photo-initiator. The pyridines in RC-VP form complex nanofibrous membranes with Cu(II) to form RC-VP-Cu(II) which enhances selectivity for lysozyme adsorption. The RC-VP-Cu(II) NFM showed superb static adsorption capacity of 800 mg·g−1 and a high saturated dynamic protein binding capacity of 700 mg·g−1 toward lysozyme. Besides, benefiting from its stable physical and chemical structures, after 5 cycles of reuses, RC-VP-Cu(II) still showed promising efficiency for lysozyme separation from egg-white samples with lysozyme activity 80% of a synthetic one. The successful synthesis of such intriguing and economic RC-VP-Cu(II) NFM may serve as a promising candidate for the next generation of rapid, massive, and cost-effective separation and purification of proteins.