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Nanotube‐grafted polyacrylamide hydrogels for electrophoretic protein separation
Author(s) -
Gunavadhi Murugappan,
Maria Lourdusamy Arul Antony,
Chamundeswari Vidya N.,
Parthasarathy Meera
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
electrophoresis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.666
H-Index - 158
eISSN - 1522-2683
pISSN - 0173-0835
DOI - 10.1002/elps.201100562
Subject(s) - monomer , nanotube , chemical engineering , polyacrylamide , carbon nanotube , self healing hydrogels , polymerization , materials science , acrylamide , catalysis , polymer chemistry , reagent , chemistry , polymer , organic chemistry , nanotechnology , composite material , engineering
Multiwalled carbon nanotube‐modified polyacrylamide gels have been employed for the electrophoretic separation of proteins. Two approaches are compared in this investigation, one using nanotubes only as fillers inside the gel matrix and the other using nanotubes as catalyst for polymerization of acrylamide. In both the cases, polymerization of acryl‐amide/bisacrylamide has been carried out in situ in the presence of nanotubes dispersed in the gel buffer containing monomer and cross‐linker. In the former case, initiator and catalyst have been added after ultrasonication of nanotubes in the gel buffer mixture where the nanotubes play the role of filler. On the other hand, the second approach precludes use of catalyst and involves addition of initiator alone during ultrasonication of nanotubes in the gel buffer containing monomer and cross‐linker, which leads to the formation of nanotube‐grafted gel after 25 min. When nanotubes are used as a catalyst instead of N,N,N′,N′ ‐tetramethylethylenediamine, pore size distribution of the gel matrix and linearity of molecular weight calibration plots are found to be improved. In addition, other issues associated with the use of an external catalyst like handling the moisture‐sensitive and corrosive reagent and associated irreproducibility are addressed in this approach.