Synthesis of Biopolymer-Silver Nanocomposite Scaffold

The CS from crab shells (Poly-(1,4-β-D-glucopyranosamine, MW 110,000 with the degree of deacetylation 0.74) was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (Munich, Germany). Polyethylene oxide (PEO), silver nitrate (≥99.0%), poloxamer (P123 with a molecular weight of around 5800 g/mol and nominal chemical formula: HO(CH₂CH₂O)₂₀(CH₂CH(CH₃)O)₇₀(CH₂CH₂O)₂₀H, was used as a stabilizer of AgP and AgNP), sodium hydroxide, and ammonium hydroxide (28.0–30.0% NH₃ basis) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich. Aqueous acetic acid (≥99.7%) was purchased from POCH (Avantor Performance Materials Poland S.A, Gliwice, Poland). The biopolymer scaffold was prepared from a biopolymer solution according to the procedure presented in a previous paper [41 (link)]. All solutions were prepared with MilliQ standard water. All reagents were used without any further purification.