Natural polymers are adequate renewable resources for the processability of well-defined architectures forseveral applications. Combinations of polysaccharides and proteins may mimic the naturally occurringenvironment of certain tissues. The main goal of this work renders the application of green chemistryprinciples, namely the use of ionic liquids (ILs) and biorenewable sources, such as chitosan (CHT) andsilkfibroin (SF), to process new hydrogel-based constructs. Although the solubilization of both materialsin ILs has been studied individually, this work reports, for the first time, the role of ILs as solvent, for theproduction of hydrogels from blends of chitosan and silkfibroin (CSF). These systems offer theadvantage of being homogeneous and presenting easy and short dissolution time of bothbiomacromolecules. Moreover, the use of chitosan obtained fromα- andβ-chitin allowed the productionof blended hydrogels with distinct physical–chemical properties.In vitroassays demonstrated that thesehydrogels supported the adhesion and growth of primary human dermalfibroblasts. Taken theseproperties together, the CSF hydrogels might be promising biomaterials to be explored for skin tissueengineering approaches.
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