Thin-layer polymer wrapped enzymes encapsulated in hierarchically mesoporous silica with high activity and enhanced...

A novel soft-hard cooperative approach was developed to synthesize bioactive mesoporous composite by pre-wrapping Penicillin G amidase with poly(acrylaimde) nanogel skin and subsequently incorporating such Penicillin G amidase nanocapsules into hierarchically mesoporous silica. The as-received bioactive mesoporous composite exhibited comparable activity and extraordinarily high stability in comparison with native Penicillin G amidase and could be used repetitively in the water-medium hydrolysis of penicillin G potassium salt. Furthermore, this strategy could be extended to the synthesis of multifunctional bioactive mesoporous composite by simultaneously introducing glucose oxidase nanocapsules and horseradish peroxidase nanocapsules into hierarchically mesoporous silica, which demonstrated a synergic effect in one-pot tandem oxidation reaction. Improvements in the catalytic performances were attributed to the combinational unique structure from soft polymer skin and hard inorganic mesoporous silica shell, which cooperatively helped enzyme molecules to retain their appropriate geometry and simultaneously decreased the enzyme-support negative interaction and mass transfer limitation under heterogeneous conditions.