Preparation of submicrometer monodisperse magnetic silica particles using a novel water in oil microemulsion: properties and application for enzyme immobilization

TUTTOLOMONDO MARÍA VICTORIA; VILLANUEVA MARÍA EMILIA; ALVAREZ GISELA SOLANGE; DESIMONE MARTIN FEDERICO; DÍAZ LUIS EDUARDO

BIOTECHNOLOGY LETTERS

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2013

0141-5492

Enzyme immobilization has attracted great interest especially because it facilitates the separation from products and improves enzyme activity and stability. Herein, we describe the synthesis of monodisperse magnetic silica nanoparticles (MSNs), using a water in oil reverse microemulsion system that does not require the use of cosurfactants. We propose the use of a sodium silicate solution, Tween 20 as a neutral surfactant and 1-butanol as the organic phase. There are several advantages of the proposed method including a saturation magnetization value of 10 emu/g for the particles obtained, uniformity of size and that they are easily functionalized to covalently bound urease. Moreover, the intraday, interday and long term stability results confirm that the procedure was successful and the enzyme linked MSNs are stable over repeated uses and storage retaining more than 75% of the activity after 4 month.