Preparation of magnetic covalent organic framework nanoparticles with multi-active site at room temperature for enrichment of Paclitaxel from Taxus cuspidata

Paclitaxel (PTX) is an anticancer compound with significant economic value found in Taxus cuspidata. Given the complex composition of the T. cuspidata substrates and the low content of PTX, developing an efficient and rapid extraction method is crucial. In this study, a magnetic covalent organic framework (MCOF-TTA-PDA) was synthesized at room temperature for the rapid extraction of PTX from T. cuspidata. The results showed that MCOF-TTA-PDA demonstrated large specific surface areas, high pore volume, superparamagnetic properties, desirable recyclability, and significant adsorption capacity for PTX. Additionally, the adsorption property experiment showed that the adsorption behavior of MCOF-TTA-PDA was more consistent with the Langmuir and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Furthermore, the strongly electronegative pyridine and triazine functional groups on MCOF-TTA-PDA’s surface enhanced its adsorption capacity. The adsorption mechanism was further explored using molecular simulations (DFT) and XPS. The results indicated that the excellent properties were mainly attributed to π-π stacking, multiple hydrogen bonding sites provided by pyridine/triazine, and suitable pore size. The MCOF was successfully used for the extraction of PTX from T. cuspidata and the enrichment ratio was 3.06 times. These results demonstrated that MCOF-TTA-PDA has the potential for efficient extraction of PTX from T. cuspidata.