Tailored Natural Polysaccharides Beads as Green Sorbents for Efficient Lysozyme Adsorption

Herein, we prepared alginate (SA)/carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) gel beads through Ca²⁺ and glutaraldehyde (GA) crosslinking and investigated their adsorption performance on lysozyme from aqueous solution. Taking advantage of the abundant active carboxyl groups on SA and CMC, the obtained SA/CMC gel beads present an excellent integrated lysozyme adsorption performance with a high capacity of 236.34 mg g⁻¹, short equilibrium time of 8 h, ease of elution, and good reusability. Furthermore, the resultant SA/CMC gel beads also possess unique selectivity for positively charged proteins, confirmed by the method of sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Considering the nature of biopolymers and advantages of favorable physical properties, high efficiency, cost-effectiveness, intriguing adsorption capacity and easier separation from the reaction system, the SA/CMC gel beads may find more potential in protein separation and purification than that of synthetic material.