(694h) Multiple Morphology Control of Biomacromolecule Crystallization Via Hydrogel Composite Membrane Based Platform

Multiple
morphology control of biomacromolecule crystallization via hydrogel composite
membrane based platform

Lin Wang,
Gaohong He, Xiaobin Jiang*

State Key Laboratory of Fine
Chemicals, Research and Development Center of Membrane Science and Technology,
School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, P. R.
China

*Corresponding author: Email:
xbjiang@dlut.edu.cn

Abstract

Membrane
crystallization (MCr) is an innovative technology in chemical engineering and
membrane science, which has been widely applied in seawater desalination,
wastewater treatment and pharmaceutical production, due to its advantages on
simple equipment, convenient operation, low energy consumption,etc [1,2,3]. Membrane
in MCr process not only act as a selective barrier, but also act as the interface
to accelerating the heterogeneous nucleation. It is significant for
controllable biomacromolecules crystal growth [4,5]. While, the modification
and optimization of the membrane interface is still a challenging and promising
research. In recent years, some research indicate that hydrogel composite
membranes (HCMs) have a great influence on promoting the biomacromolecules
crystallization [6,7].

In
this study, the HCMs with fingerprint-like interface structure (fabricated by
functional monomer and crosslinker through UV initiation) is prepared and
applied in lysozyme MCr process. The HCMs prepared by this method possess
abundant biomimetic-structure on the surface and the cross-section under
different water content and crosslinking degree (shown in Fig. 1), which provide
the potential regulable ability to the heterogeneous nucleation acceleration
and crystal growth control.

As
a results, compared with original PP membrane, the HCMs have a remarkable role
on regulating the proportion of the various crystal shapes and promoting the
new crystal shapes under different pH value of buffer solution. The hexagon and
square shape crystal only observed in HCMs-involved process. The proportion of
hexagon and square crystal are 16.0 %, 13.6 % in the pH=3.6 buffer solution (shown in Fig. 1). In addition, in
the pH=4.6 buffer solution, no rodlike or long hexagon crystals are observed, the obtained crystals in
HCMs platform are all hexagon and square shape, which are account for 22.3 %, 77.7
% (shown in Fig. 2), respectively.

Fig. 1 Comparison
of the structure of original PP membrane and HCMs, crystal morphology control
results in
the pH=3.6 buffer solution.

Fig. 2
Crystal morphology control results of original PP membrane and HCMs in
the pH=4.6 buffer solution.

Acknowledgment

We
acknowledge financial contribution from from National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 21527812, 21676043, U1663223),
Changjiang Scholars Program (T2012049), the Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities (DUT16TD19) and Education Department of the Liaoning
Province of China (No. LT2015007).

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