Preparation and characterization of hollow magnetic composite nanoparticles for immobilized pectinase

•Fe3O4/SiO2@Carboxymethyl chitosan presents a time-saving process for enzyme immobilization.•The immobilized enzyme could be recycled for further reaction by magnet.

The aims of the present work were to establish the magnetite core based nanometer microspheres of morphology concept of multifunctional core/shell nanometer microspheres which had the potential use as pectinase supporter. We had described the convenient method of synthesis and characterization of biodegradable/biocompatible Fe3O4/SiO2@CMCS. The larger aspect ratios of hollow materials could be taken up by cells in larger amounts and have higher internalization rates, which was of great significance for the enhancement of chemotherapy effectiveness. We investigated the enzymatic activity of pectinase adsorbing on novel hollow magnetic composite microspheres. The immobilized enzyme retained more than 50% of its initial activity over 40 days, and the optimum temperature/pH also increased to the range of 50–60 °C/3.0–5.0. The immobilized enzyme exhibited great operational stability, and more than 75% residual activity was observed after 10 batch reactions. Moreover, the Fe3O4/SiO2@Carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS) support presented a very simple, mild and time-saving process for enzyme immobilization. This strategy of immobilizing pectinase made expensive enzymes economically viable, strengthening repeated usage of them because of their rapid and easy separation with a magnet.