Direct capture of lactoferrin from cheese whey on supermacroporous column of polyacrylamide cryogel with copper ions

•We evaluated the application of the IMAC with Cu2+ in the lactoferrin capture.•The IDA-Cu2+ system was able to purify the lactoferrin.•The system is especially interesting because it has low resistance to flow. Lactoferrin is a protein that is present in cheese whey (a waste product from the dairy industry) and has several biological activities. However, its production from whey must have a high yield and low cost for industrial applications. As such, this study reports the use of polyacrylamide cryogel, loaded with Cu2+ (through the bond with iminodiacetic acid (IDA)), as an adsorbent for the chromatographic process to capture lactoferrin whey. Ultrafiltered cheese whey was passed through the cryogel-IDA-Cu2+ system. The eluates were subjected to analysis of total protein, SDS–PAGE and size exclusion chromatography. The results showed an axial dispersion coefficients, at different superficial velocities of liquid, in a range of 10–6–10–5m2/s. The cryogel demonstrated good hydraulic permeability (4.7086×10–13m2) and a porosity of approximately 78.2%. The IDA-Cu2+ cryogel system was also able to capture lactoferrin in high purity.