Immobilisation behaviour of biomolecules in mesoporous silica materials

New insights are demonstrated on the immobilisation of biomolecules in porous materials: the concept of thermally activated diffusion has successfully been applied to their immobilisation. This offers a possibility (i) to influence the immobilised amount and the catalytic activity of some biomolecules in comparison with the classical method and (ii) to re-think the overall concept of immobilisation of biomolecules in porous materials. The results obtained are presented in this article and are obtained for mesoporous silica materials. It can, however, reasonably be assumed that this immobilisation behaviour is also valid for other kinds of biomolecules in porous materials. The immobilisation of these biomolecules is important in a broad class of research fields, particularly in the food, pharmaceutical and catalytic research. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.