Fig. 1

SAXS scattering curves. Top graph: neat NSF (green circles), together with its best fitting curve (solid black line), and residuals’ fitting (inset). Middle graph: neat TC-PN (black circles), together with its best fitting (solid blue line), and residuals’ fitting (inset); NSF-loaded TC-PN (red circles). Bottom graph: NSF-loaded TC-PN after the mathematical treatment described in the text (red circles), superimposed to the scattering curve of the neat hydrogel (black circles), together with its best fitting (solid blue line), and residuals’ fitting (inset). The three residuals’ plots show that the fitting is good, since no significant peaks, trends, or other features are visible in the graphs, and the points are uniformly distributed below and above zero, along the q-axis