Silk Fibroin/Polyvinyl Pyrrolidone Interpenetrating Polymer Network Hydrogels

Area of Science:

• Biomaterials Science
• Polymer Chemistry
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Silk fibroin hydrogels are promising biomaterial matrices due to biocompatibility.
• Native silk fibroin hydrogels suffer from poor transparency and mechanical resilience.
• Existing limitations hinder their widespread use in medical polymer applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop silk fibroin hydrogels with enhanced transparency and mechanical properties.
• To synthesize an interpenetrating network (IPN) hydrogel using silk fibroin and N-Vinyl-2-pyrrolidone.
• To investigate the impact of IPN structure on gelation time, transparency, and mechanical performance.

Main Methods:

• Synthesized interpenetrating network (IPN) hydrogels by varying silk fibroin/N-Vinyl-2-pyrrolidone ratios.
• Utilized hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) and horseradish peroxidase for crosslinking.
• Characterized hydrogel properties including gel time, light transmittance, aperture size, elastic modulus, and resilience.

Main Results:

• IPN hydrogels significantly reduced gelation time compared to pure fibroin solutions.
• Achieved high light transmittance (>97%) with sustained transparency (>90% over a week).
• Demonstrated superior mechanical properties, including high resilience (nearly 95% at 70% compression).

Conclusions:

• The developed IPN hydrogels overcome the limitations of native silk fibroin hydrogels.
• These novel hydrogels exhibit excellent transparency and mechanical robustness.
• The findings suggest significant potential for these IPN hydrogels in advanced medical material applications.