TABLE 2.

Summary of most frequently used techniques for the characterization of cryogels

Physical	Mechanical	Microstructural	In vitro	In vivo
Density (Tripathi & Kumar, 2011)	Rheology (Singh et al., 2013)	Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) (Tripathi & Kumar, 2011)	Cell viability, proliferation, and metabolic activity studies (Petrenko et al., 2011; Mosmann, 1983; Petrenko et al., 2005)	Histological analysis (Singh et al., 2013)
Mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) (Woerly et al., 1998)	Compression and elasticity testing (Van Vlierberghe et al., 2009)	Micro computed tomography (CT) imaging (Kumar et al., 2010)	Microscopy analysis (Kathuria et al., 2009)	-
Pore interconnectivity (Kathuria et al., 2009)	Dynamical mechanical analysis (DMA) (Rodrigues et al., 2013)	-	-	-
Swelling (Kathuria et al., 2009)	-	-	-	-