Ionic-liquid-based approaches to improve biopharmaceuticals downstream processing and formulation

The emergence of biopharmaceuticals, including proteins, nucleic acids, peptides, and vaccines, revolutionized the medical field, contributing to significant advances in the prophylaxis and treatment of chronic and life-threatening diseases. However, biopharmaceuticals manufacturing involves a set of complex upstream and downstream processes, which considerably impact their cost. In particular, despite the efforts made in the last decades to improve the existing technologies, downstream processing still accounts for more than 80% of the total biopharmaceutical production cost. On the other hand, the formulation of biological products must ensure they maintain their therapeutic performance and long-term stability, while preserving their physical and chemical structure. Ionic-liquid (IL)-based approaches arose as a promise alternative, showing the potential to be used in downstream processing to provide increased purity and recovery yield, as well as excipients for the development of stable biopharmaceutical formulations. This manuscript reviews the most important progress achieved in both fields. The work developed is critically discussed and complemented with a SWOT analysis.

Excellent performance separation of trypsin by novel ternary magnetic composite adsorbent based on betaine-urea- glycerol natural deep eutectic solvent modified MnFe2O4-MWCNTs

The effective trypsin purification methods should be established since trypsin plays a crucial role in biosome. In this work, a novel ternary magnetic composite adsorbent (MnFe₂O₄-MWCNTs@B-U-G) with the features of strong specific selectivity, good adsorption effect, simple and efficient separation process, no secondary pollution brought in was prepared by integrating the superior physicochemical properties of ternary based natural deep eutectic solvent, multi-walled carbon nanotubes and MnFe₂O₄. The property, composition and microtopography structure of MnFe₂O₄-MWCNTs@B-U-G were characterized in detail. Combined with magnetic solid-phase extraction, MnFe₂O₄-MWCNTs@B-U-G was utilized to adsorb trypsin. Response surface methodology experiment was prepared under Box-Behnken design to optimize the adsorption conditions and the results showed that the practical maximum adsorption capacity for trypsin was 1020.1 mg g^-1. Besides, the adsorption isotherms, adsorption kinetics, regeneration studies and method validation studies were investigated systematically to evaluate the established adsorption separation system. Mechanism exploration proved that electrostatic interaction, hydrogen bonding interaction and chelation interaction were the dominant forces for the high-performance adsorption of trypsin. The activity of trypsin after elution had been analyzed by UV-vis spectrophotometer and CD spectrometer with three methods, which illustrated that the enzyme activity, conformation and secondary structure of trypsin did not change significantly during the adsorption-desorption process. In addition, the proposed method was successful and practical applicability to isolation trypsin from crude bovine pancreas. As a result, due to the superiority of the MnFe₂O₄-MWCNTs@B-U-G, the proposed method not only exhibites high-performance adsorption of trypsin, but also provides a green and sustainable potential value in the adsorption of biomacromolecule.

Ionic liquid-based magnetic nanoparticles for magnetic dispersive solid-phase extraction: A review

Due to their highly tunable nature and outstanding physicochemical properties, ionic liquids (ILs) have been widely reported for use in the synthesis of multitudinous magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). IL-based magnetic nanoparticles (IL-MNPs) have great potential in magnetic dispersive solid-phase extraction (MDSPE). At present, IL-MNPs have been successfully applied in the pretreatment of MDSPE samples from medicines, pesticides, veterinary drugs, heavy metals, dyes, additives, and proteins in agricultural products, foods and beverages, environmental water, and biological samples. In this review, the preparation of IL-MNPs and their application in MDSPE are comprehensively summarized. The structural characteristics of the introduced ILs used to prepare the IL-MNPs and the synthetic routes employed to obtain the IL-MNPs are described, including physical coating and chemical bonding methods. The IL-MNPs are then classified and described according to different modified materials, including silica-based materials, carbon-based materials, metal-organic frameworks, molecularly imprinted polymers and other interesting large/small molecules. Finally, the research prospects and development directions of IL-MNPs in the context of MDSPE are further identified.

Synthesis of magnetic tungsten disulfide/carbon nanotubes nanocomposite (WS2/Fe3O4/CNTs-NC) for highly efficient ultrasound-assisted rapid removal of amaranth and brilliant blue FCF hazardous dyes

In this research, the potentiality of magnetic tungsten disulfide/carbon nanotubes nanocomposite (WS₂/Fe₃O₄/CNTs-NC) as an adsorbent for the ultrasound-assisted removal of amaranth (AM) and brilliant blue FCF (BB FCF) dyes was investigated. The experiments were conducted using a central composite design (CCD) with the inputs of solution pH (X₁: 2.0-10), adsorbent mass (X₄: 4-20 mg), AM concentration (X₂: 10-50 mg L^-1), BB FCF concentration (X₃: 10-50 mg L^-1), and sonication time (X₅: 2-12 min). At the optimum conditions, the removal percentages of 99.30% and 98.50% were obtained for AM and BB FCF, respectively. The adsorption of the dyes was described by Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order (PSO) kinetic models. The maximum adsorption capacities of AM and BB FCF were 174.8 mg g^-1 and 166.7 mg g^-1, respectively. The adsorption thermodynamic study showed that the adsorption of the dyes occurred endothermically and spontaneously. The removal percentages of AM and BB FCF from the real samples were in the range of 94.52-99.65% for the binary solutions. The removal percentage for each dye after five cycles of adsorption/desorption was > 90%. This work provides a useful insight to the potential application of CNTs-based magnetic nanocomposite for the treatment of wastewaters contaminated with dyes.

pH-responsive polymer assisted aptamer functionalized magnetic nanoparticles for specific recognition and adsorption of proteins

A new adsorbent based on pH-responsive polymer assisted aptamer functionalized magnetic nanoparticles was developed for specific recognition and efficient adsorption of proteins. Arising from the synergistic effect of specific affinity of apatamer on protein and tunable hydrophobic/hydrophilic property of pH-responsive polymer, the adsorbent exhibited excellent adsorption capacity for target protein. Notably, because of the pH-responsive property of the polymer, the adsorption and desorption process could be regulated through varying environmental pH. The resultant adsorbent that immobilized with lysozyme binding aptamer was successfully applied in specific recognition and efficient adsorption of lysozyme in egg white samples and good recovery results in the range of 95.2-103.2% were obtained. Moreover, the adsorbent immobilized with cytochrome C binding aptamer also exhibited satisfactory adsorption to cytochrome C. The synergistic effect of pH-responsive polymer and aptamer promoted the recognition selectivity and adsorption capacity to target protein, illustrating a facile way for construction of more specific protein adsorbents.

Ultrasound combined with manganese-oxide nanoparticles loaded on activated carbon for extraction and pre-concentration of thymol and carvacrol in methanolic extracts of Thymus daenensis, Salvia officinalis, Stachys pilifera, Satureja khuzistanica, and mentha, and water samples

A dispersive micro solid-phase extraction (DMSPE) technique was developed using manganese-oxide nanoparticles loaded on activated carbon (Mn₃O₄-NPs-AC) as an effective sorbent combined with ultrasound for the extraction and determination of a trace amount of thymol and carvacrol in methanolic extracts of Thymus daenensis, Salvia officinalis, Stachys pilifera, Satureja khuzistanica and mentha, and water samples.

Synthesis, characterization and properties of tropine-based ionic liquids gels

Hydrophilic ionic liquid (IL) gels based-on tropine as a potential separation material.

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes modified by polyaniline for the removal of alizarin yellow R from aqueous solutions

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) encapsulated by polyaniline (PANI) were synthesized by in situ polymerization. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) were used to characterize the synthesized composites (O-MWCNTs/PANI), and the surface area was calculated by the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) method. The removal capacity of alizarin yellow R (AYR) with O-MWCNTs/PANI was further investigated. Experiments were conducted to optimize the adsorption conditions, including contact time, pH, initial concentration of AYR and temperature. The results showed that the maximum adsorption capacity for AYR was 884.80 mg/g. The adsorption kinetics and the adsorption isotherm could be better described by the pseudo-second-order model and the Langmuir isotherm, respectively. Energy changes revealed that the adsorption process was exothermic and spontaneous in nature. Additionally, the O-MWCNTs/PANI showed higher adsorption capacity than pristine MWCNTs or PANI. Therefore, O-MWCNTs/PANI would be applied as an efficient adsorbent for the removal of dye from water.

Ionic liquid-coated Fe3O4/APTES/graphene oxide nanocomposites: synthesis, characterization and evaluation in protein extraction processes

A magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE) procedure with ionic liquid (IL) coated 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES)-Fe₃O₄ grafted graphene oxide (GO) nanocomposite (Fe₃O₄/APTES/GO/IL) as adsorbent has been developed for protein extraction.