A facile approach for imprinting protein on the surface of multi-walled carbon nanotubes

This study describes a green, facile and low cost approach for imprinting protein on the surface of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) using papain as the template, dopamine as the functional monomer. By simply mixing MWNTs, dopamine, template protein in weak alkaline aqueous solution, a thin adherent polydopamine (PDA) film imprinted with protein was spontaneously obtained on the surface of MWNTs to produce the imprinted nanomaterials (MWNTs@MIPs). The obtained MWNTs@MIPs were characterized with Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The adsorption process of the MWNTs@MIPs towards template protein was investigated in detail. The effects of the concentration of the monomer and template, polymerization time, extraction process were optimized. The prepared MWNTs@MIPs show fast binding kinetics, high binding capacity and acceptable specific recognition behavior towards template proteins. Furthermore, the stability and regeneration were also investigated, which indicated that the MWNTs@MIPs had good reusability. The good recognizing behavior coupled to the low cost and facile one-step preparation make the MWNTs@MIPs attractive for separation and specific protein recognition.