The present work involves the study of bovine serumalbumin adsorption onto five functionalized polystyrene lattices. The adsorption measurements have been carried out using a quartz crystal
microbalance. Poly(styrene-co-itaconic acid) was found to be an effective adsorbent for bovine serum albumin molecule adsorption. The experimental isotherm data were analyzed using theoretical models based on a statistical physics approach, namely monolayer, double layer with two successive energy levels, finite multilayer, and modified Brunauer–Emmet–Teller. The equilibrium data were then analyzed using five different non-linear error analysis methods and it was found that the finite multilayer model best describes the protein adsorption data. Surface characteristics, i.e., surface charge density and number density of surface carboxyl groups, were used to investigate their effect on the adsorption capacity. The combination of the results obtained from the number of adsorbed layers, the number of adsorbed molecules per site, and the thickness of the adsorbed bovine serum albumin layer allows us to predict that the adsorption of this protein
molecule can also be distinguished by monolayer or multilayer adsorption with end-on, side-on, and overlap conformations. The magnitudes of the calculated adsorption energy indicate that
bovine serum albumin molecules are physisorbed onto the adsorbent lattices.
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