Modern traumatic wound-care products have several associated disadvantages. They do not meet requirements because they lack good permeability, biocompatibility and air tightness. In an attempt to overcome these shortcomings, a new type of flexible, instantaneouslyformed hydrogels resulting from blending silk fibroin and cationic surfactants with different carbon chains are introduced in this work. The secondary structure of these hydrogels is similar to that of a silk fibroin solution as they primarily consist of random coils. However, the structure is different from a pure silk fibroin hydrogel which primarily consists of β-sheet structure. By means of SEM, silk fibroin molecules form clustered nanofilaments during the cationic surfactant-induced hydrogelation, which is different from a pure silk fibroin hydrogel that is composed of a porous network structure. The charge effect, hydrophobic effect and surface tension are presumed to be related to the formation of the cationic surfactant/silk fibroin hydrogels.
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