The potential of naturally occurring substances as a source of biomedical materials is well-recognised and is being increasingly exploited. Silk fibroin membranes derived from Bombyx mori silk cocoons exemplify this, for example as substrata for the growth of ocular cells with the aim of generating biomaterial-cell constructs for tissue engineering. This study investigated the transport properties of selected silk fibroin membranes under conditions that allowed equilibrium hydration of the membranes to be maintained. The behaviour of natural fibroin membranes was compared with fibroin membranes that have been chemically modified with poly(ethylene glycol). The permeation of the smaller hydrated sodium ion was higher than that of the hydrated calcium ion for all three ethanol treated membranes investigated. The PEG and HRP-modified C membrane, which had the highest water content at 59.61.5% exhibited the highest permeation of the three membranes at 95.72.8נ10^–8 cm² s⁻¹ compared with 17.90.9נ10^–8 cm² s⁻¹ and 8.71.7נ10^–8 cm² s⁻¹ for membranes A and B respectively for the NaCl permeant. Poly(ethylene glycol) was used to increase permeability while exploiting the crosslinking capabilities of horseradish peroxidase to increase the compressive strength of the membrane. Importantly, we have established that the permeation behaviour of water-soluble permeants with hydrated radii in the sub-nanometer range is analogous to that of conventional hydrogel polymers.

天然存在的物质作为生物医学材料来源的潜力已得到广泛认可并得到越来越多的利用。源自家蚕的丝素蛋白膜蚕茧就是一个例子，例如作为眼细胞生长的基质，目的是为组织工程生成生物材料细胞结构。这项研究调查了选定的丝素蛋白膜在允许保持膜的平衡水合作用的条件下的传输特性。将天然丝心蛋白膜的行为与用聚（乙二醇）化学改性的丝心蛋白膜进行了比较。对于所研究的所有三种乙醇处理膜，较小水合钠离子的渗透率高于水合钙离子的渗透率。PEG 和 HRP 修饰的 C 膜的含水量最高，为 59.61.5%，在 95.72.8נ10 ^–8 cm ² s处表现出三种膜的最高渗透率^-1与 17.90.9נ10 ^–8 cm ² s ^-1和 8.71.7נ10 ^–8 cm ² s ^{-1 相比}，对于 NaCl 渗透物，膜 A 和 B 分别为。聚（乙二醇）用于增加渗透性，同时利用辣根过氧化物酶的交联能力来增加膜的抗压强度。重要的是，我们已经确定水合半径在亚纳米范围内的水溶性渗透物的渗透行为类似于常规水凝胶聚合物的渗透行为。