Control of the properties of porous chitosan–alginate membranes through the addition of different proportions of Pluronic F68

•Chitosan–alginate membranes were produced with different amounts of Pluronic F68.•Physicochemical properties can be tuned through variation of surfactant proportion.•Samples are applicable as wound dressings or scaffolds.

This work addresses the development and characterization of porous chitosan–alginate based polyelectrolyte complexes, obtained by using two different proportions of the biocompatible surfactant Pluronic F68. These biomaterials are proposed for applications as biodegradable and biocompatible wound dressing and/or scaffolds. The results indicate that thickness, roughness, porosity and liquid uptake of the membranes increase with the amount of surfactant used, while their mechanical properties and stability in aqueous media decrease. Other important properties such as color and surface hydrophilicity (water contact angle) are not significantly altered or did not present a clear tendency of variation with the increase of the amount of surfactant added to the polyelectrolyte complexes, such as real density, average pore diameter, total pore volume and surface area. The prepared biomaterials were not cytotoxic to L929 cells. In conclusion, it is possible to tune the physicochemical properties of chitosan–alginate polyelectrolyte complexes, through the variation of the proportion of surfactant (Pluronic F68) added to the mixture, so as to enable the desired application of these biomaterials.