I am trying to prepare scaffold by hydrogel method. What will be the case if we do not use a cross linker, as cross linkers increase the reactive site. If we increase the concentration of gelatin for scaffold then is their need a need to add a cross linker?
Warm gelatin solution forms physical gel when cooled to room temperature. So I do not think any crosslinker is needed. Addition of chitosan would not chang the process.
Try any of this methods:
(1) Hydrothermal methods (Heating and Cooling)
(2) If you were able to modify your molecules with aromatic groups or carboxylic groups you could try gelation by pH change.
(3) using enzymes
(4) Use electrospinning:
Fabrication and characterization of chitosan-gelatin blend nanofibers for skin tissue engineering
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/jbm.b.31651/
have a look at this papers:
a) Mao JS,Zhao LG,Yin YJ,Yao KD. Structure and properties of
bilayer chitosan-gelatin scaffolds. Biomaterials 2003;24:1067–74.
Example of cross-linked and non-cross linked chitosan-gelatin scaffolds with SEM pictures:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961205004175#
Other example:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742706108001906