Figure 4.

Results of the gravimetric characterization of the hydrogels. Hydrogels were prepared with gelatin type A or albumin (10 wt %), heparin (1 wt %), and different EDC concentrations. At 0.1 M EDC, no crosslinking was achieved for albumin-based gels. The EDS decreased with increasing EDC concentration for both biopolymers (asterisks with solid lines: p < 0.05; grey lines refer to gelatin, black line refers to albumin; n = 3), while the EDS of gelatin gels was significantly higher compared to the albumin gels in all cases (asterisk with dotted lines: p < 0.01; n = 3).