Morphological Assessment of Thymol Essential Oil using Different Solvents and Stirring Time

Essential oils (EOs) have been used in numerous industries for ages including pharmaceutical, textile and food. Microencapsulation formulation and techniques are important to enhance the EOs characteristics and stability which could directly influence the yield and quality of EOs. This research paper evaluated the effect of using different solvents and stirring time on thymol EO microcapsules. Ethanol and methanol were used as solvents to encapsulate the core and wall material using a simple coacervation method. The microcapsules were collected at various time intervals which were 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 minutes. It has been noted that the stirring time influenced the size of microcapsules. Using Thymol oil, ethyl cellulose, methanol and polyvinyl alcohol (TM) produces the most microcapsules at 120 minutes of stirring time. The biggest microcapsule diameter was recorded at 90 min stirring time using formulation of thymol oil, ethyl cellulose, ethanol, and polyvinyl alcohol (TE). The encapsulation efficiency (EE) of both samples are 64.55% and 72.16%, respectively.