Porous polymer microspheres have been widely used in separation and purification of drugs, which are a series of important biochemical engineering products. Formation of porous microspheres is a complex process. Microspheres with pore size below 100 nm is obtained by phase separation of polymers and porogens, while microspheres with pore size above 100 nm can be obtained by phase separation of polymers and water. The porous microspheres with different structures should be delicately designed to meet the application needs. Suspension and seeded polymerizations methods which can be used to fabricate macro-,meso-and nanoporous microspheres are reviewed. Besides, reverse micelles swelling and double emulsion methods are introduced in detail to prepare gigaporous microspheres based on our group's research. HB-VLPs are used to prove the advantages of gigaporous microspheres in biomacromolecules purification by comparison with mesoporous microspheres.
Contents
1 Introduction
2 Suspension polymerization method to prepare porous microspheres
2.1 Using a good solvent as the porogen
2.2 Using a non-solvent as the porogen
2.3 Using solids as the porogen
3 Seeded polymerization method to prepare porous microspheres
4 Reversed micelle swelling method to prepare porous microspheres
5 W/O/W double emulsion method to prepare porous microspheres
6 Application of gigaporous microspheres in virus-like particles purification
6.1 Effect of pore size of microspheres on the adsorption of HB-VLPs
6.2 Effect of pore size of microspheres on the recovery and structure of HB-VLPs
6.3 Actual purif?cation of HB-VLPs on different microspheres
7 Conclusion