K975x turbo pumped thermal evaporator

The morphology of the capsules was examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) on a FESEM microscope (LEO 1500 GEMINI, Zeiss, Germany). Depending on the employed encapsulation technique, a slender layer of microcapsules (via spray-drying) or a segment of aluminum foil measuring approximately 0.5 × 0.5 cm enclosing the sample (via electrospraying) was affixed onto a carbon tape on a pin and carbon-coated using an EMITECH K975X Turbo-Pumped Thermal Evaporator (Quorum Technologies, Lewes, UK). SEM images were captured in the range of 2K×–20K× in case of the electrosprayed capsules, and 200×–2K× in the case of spray-dried capsules with a 3 kV accelerating voltage and 30 µm aperture. The particle size distributions and mean diameters were determined by measuring 200 randomly selected particles using the ImageJ software (https://imagej.net/ij/index.html, accessed on 7 May 2024) (National Institute of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA).

The morphology of the capsules was investigated via scanning electron microscopy (SEM) using an FESEM microscope (LEO 1500 GEMINI, Zeiss, Germany). Depending on the microencapsulation technology used, a thin layer of microcapsules (i.e., spray-drying) or a piece of approximately 0.5 × 0.5 cm aluminum foil containing the sample (i.e., electrospraying) was placed on the carbon tape and carbon-coated using an EMITECH K975X Turbo-Pumped Thermal Evaporator (Quorum Technologies, UK). The SEM images were acquired in the range of 500×–15K× magnification with a 5 kV accelerating voltage. The particle size distributions and mean diameters were determined by measuring 180 randomly selected capsules using ImageJ software (National Institute of Health).