Preparation of polyamine-functionalized copper specific adsorbents for selective adsorption of copper

The level of serum free copper is greatly elevated in Wilsonʹs disease. For patients with acute Wilsonʹs disease, liver transplantation is the only lifesaving treatment. Plasma exchange or albumin dialysis is often used as a bridge to liver transplantation to maintain a stable clinical status for patients. Hemoperfusion is another effective therapy in removing toxins from the plasma. However, hemoperfusion has not been reported to remove copper due to lack of copper specific adsorbent. In this work, copper chelating agents, triethylenetetramine and tetraethylenepentamine, were covalently immobilized onto macroporous poly(glycidyl methacrylate-co-trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate) microspheres to prepare copper specific adsorbents. The resulting adsorbents demonstrated good adsorption capacities of 63.44 and 58.48 mg/g, respectively, for Cu2+ ion. Additionally, with the interference of other metal ions such as Fe2+, Mg2+, Zn2+ and Ca2+, the prepared copper adsorbents still demonstrated good specificity toward Cu2+ ion. These results indicate that the adsorbents are promising adsorbents in hemoperfusion therapy for selective removal of copper for patients with severe Wilsonʹs disease.