Exploring Natural Sea Egg Capsules Decorated with Polyphenol-Inspired Polymers as a Remediating Solution toward...

Biohybrid composites have emerged as highly effective and biocompatible materials of growing interest for applications in environmental remediation. In this work, the potential of porous collagen-/keratin-based capsules, which are naturally released by marine murex snails after their eggs hatch, was explored as an organic matrix for pollutant adsorption. In contrast to previous approaches, an all-in-water linker-mediated bis-condensation was performed directly on the egg capsules in order to synthesize a polyfunctional dendrimer version of polyphenol moieties, starting from gallic acid. The efficacy of this novel material to adsorb various organic pharmaceutical pollutants was evaluated by means of micro-Raman spectroscopy, micro-Fourier transform infrared (μFTIR) mapping, and ultraviolet (UV)-visible/fluorescence microscopy.