For degradation studies, weighted hydrogel freeze-dried samples were immersed in pH 7.4 PBS and incubated at 37 °C at selected time intervals. At each selected time interval, the samples were removed from PBS, dried, and weighted. The hydrogel degradation was calculated using following Eq: Degradation (%) = (mt/m0) × 100, where mt and m0 refer to weight of freeze-dried hydrogels at selected time interval and before immersing in PBS respectively.