Box plots visualizing the compressive strength (a) and modulus (b) of alginate hydrogel scaffolds obtained from untreated (non-sterile) and differently sterilized alginate powders.

<p>Each box shows the 25th to 75th percentile of the measured strength and modulus, respectively (n = 6). Squares (□) represent mean values, horizontal bars inside the box show the median value, while upper and lower bars indicate the upper and lower values within 1.5 times the inter-quartile range from the upper and lower quartile (adjacent values are labelled as ×).