Separation of biological molecules using mesoporous molecular sieves

Abstract

The selective separation and purification of biological molecules is important in a number of industries, especially those processing food or pharmaceuticals. However, the applications of molecular sieves for these separations have been limited by the available pore sizes (<1.5 nm). With the development of synthetic mesoporous molecular sieves the available pore size range has been extended, providing pores large enough to allow access for a number of biological molecules. These materials have unique properties desirable for adsorption including a highly regular structure, uniform pore sizes and a high surface area, thus offering potential for separations based on size exclusion and targeted..