Regulable preparation of silk fibroin composite cryogel by dual-directional crosslink for achieving self-cleaning, superelasticity and multifunctional water purification

Recently, the cryogel as a special type of hydrogel was widely used in the field of medicine due to its porous structure and good biocompatibilit. However, great challenges existed for its irregular pore size and incompressible property, limiting its application in other fields. In this study, a novel silk fibroin-based cryogel (named SF@PVA/CS) with regulable pore size, excellent elasticity and durability was constructed using a green dual-directional crosslink strategy. The SF@PVA/CS was prepared by using silk fibroin (SF) as bone scaffold, and chitosan (CS) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as polymer hydrogel which was introduced into the inner bone scaffold of SF. Such a brand-new cryogel possessed three-dimensional dual network structure, which can overcome the shortcoming of unregulatable pore size and incompressibility of traditional cryogel. Additionally, the developed SF@PVA/CS membrane was used for water purification for the first time, which exhibited superior selective permeation, excellent anti-fouling and brilliant self-cleaning property, and it can achieve the purification of both oil/water emulsion and methylene blue solution. This study expanded the application of SF-based cryogel, providing a novel routine for designing new-type composite cryogel and widening the application of dual-directional crosslink strategy developed in this study for facilitating the purification of wastewater.