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In situ AFM observation of BSA adsorption on HOPG with nanobubble

  • Articles
  • Physical Chemistry
  • Published:
Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

Nanobubbles have been proven existent at the liquid/solid interface, and become a focus of research on varied interfacial processes. In the present work, by observing in situ with atomic force microscope (AFM), we found that nanobubbles could influence the adsorption process of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on hydrophobic surface of highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG). BSA could adsorb evently, and coexist with nanobubbles at water/HOPG interface. After removing nanobubbles by injecting ethanol, some hollows were found in the BSA layers at the same positions of nanobubbles existing previously. These hollows were about 8 nm in depth and dozens of nanometers in diameter. The correlation coefficient between the areas of nanobubbles and that of the corresponding hollows reached 0.88–0.94, which strongly supported the assumption that the hollows were indeed caused by the nanobubbles. Moreover, the BSA molecules formed rings around the nanobubbles, suggesting the preference of BSA adsorption onto the contact line at water/HOPG interface.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangxi-OAI Joint Research Institute, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330047, China

    Wu ZhiHua

  2. Nanobiology Laboratory, College of Life Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200030, China

    Wu ZhiHua, Zhang XiaoDong, Sun JieLin & Hu Jun

  3. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Melbourne, Vic., 3010, Australia

    Zhang XueHua

  4. Department of Chemistry, Life and Environment Science School, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, 200234, China

    Dong YaMing

  5. Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201800, China

    Hu Jun

Authors
  1. Wu ZhiHua
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  2. Zhang XueHua
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  3. Zhang XiaoDong
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  4. Sun JieLin
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  5. Dong YaMing
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  6. Hu Jun
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Wu ZhiHua or Hu Jun.

Additional information

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 20403010)

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Wu, Z., Zhang, X., Zhang, X. et al. In situ AFM observation of BSA adsorption on HOPG with nanobubble. Chin. Sci. Bull. 52, 1913–1919 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-007-0288-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-007-0288-8

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