Moderately Hydrophilic Gigaporous Polystyrene@ZIF‑8 Composite Microspheres for Synergy-Enhanced Removal of Bilirubin

However, these resins pose two major issues in clinical use: heparin binding and coagulation activation. In this work, we developed moderately hydrophilic gigaporous polystyrene (mHGPS) microspheres with a surface that balances hemocompatibility and hydrophobic bilirubin adsorption, and then immobilized ZIF-8 in situ to obtain mHGPS@ZIF-8 composite microspheres for synergy-enhanced selective bilirubin adsorption.

The composite microspheres were featured with through-connected gigapores (∼1.05 μm), high porosity (64.02%), high permeability (7.31 × 10^–11 m²) and satisfactory hemocompatibility with a hemolysis rate of 1.67%. Compared to mHGPS microspheres, the mHGPS@ZIF-8 composite microspheres exhibited a 2.6-fold increase in the adsorption capacity for bilirubin (from 53.1 mg/g to 138.9 mg/g). Notably, an even greater 3.1-fold enhancement was achieved for albumin-bound bilirubin (from 18.7 mg/g to 57.8 mg/g).