One-Pot Synthesis of Bimodal Gigaporous Polystyrene Microspheres with Hydrophilic Surfaces

Hydrophilic gigaporous polystyrene (HGPS) microspheres with bimodal pore distributions were first synthesized in one step, using amphiphilic diblock glycopolymers (ADG) and toluene as macroporogen and mesoporogen, respectively. The effects of different HLB values, molecular weights, and concentrations of ADG as well as the addition of mesoporogen on the morphology of microspheres were investigated in detail. The HGPS microspheres were characterized to possess two type of pores, i.e., gigapores (300–7000 nm) and mesopores (4–50 nm). As a consequence, the column packed with HGPS microspheres presented low backpressure, good permeability, and high column efficiency, indicating the existence of flow-through pores in the particle. Compared to native polystyrene microspheres, the nonspecific adsorption of proteins on HGPS microspheres was greatly reduced by 93.2%. The HGPS microspheres can be easily derivatized by classical methods since their surface was hydroxyl-rich glycopolymers. All the results indicate that the HGPS microspheres have great potentials in high-speed protein chromatography, cell culture, and enzyme immobilization