Hydrogels are being made from a blend of silk fiborin and collagen. How can one confirm whether the blending is uniform throughout the hydrogel? what characterization technique can be used?
you can use SEM image from different part of your blend.
also, you can use Idax Technic for N atom and study the distribution of this atom.
Might create a nice visual to use immunohistochemistry with fluorescence. You should be able to use an antibody on the collagen to selectively stain
Thanks Kevin,
This seems to be a practically more viable approach. Could you please share any relevant literature for fluorescent labeling of collagen solution?
FTIR/ ATR can be a simple alternative . Perorm FTIR of individual polymers then proceed for the FTIR of the formed hydrogel if the wavenumbers related to your polymers are present in the formed blended hydrogel then you can say that it is blended homogenously.