Functionalization of polycarbonate with proteins; open-tubular enzymatic microreactors

Abstract

This paper examines a set of techniques for the immobilization of enzymes on the surface of microchannels fabricated in polycarbonate (PC). Our experiments identify the method that uses combined physico-chemical immobilization on a layer of polyethyleneimine (PEI) as a reproducible vista for the robust immobilization of proteins. As an example, we demonstrate the fabrication, throughput and stability of an open-tubular reactor draped with alkaline phosphatase (ALP, EC 3.1.3.1) as a model enzyme. As PC is suitable for industrial applications the method could potentially be used to immobilize proteins in numbered-up implementations.