*2.3. Encapsulation Efficiency and Loading Capacity*

The TGA/DGT technique can be used for quantitative analysis. The amount of CBLO loaded can be determined by the weight loss of CS@CBLO NPs at temperatures of 293–415 ◦C (Figure 4A-ii–vi), while the percentage of LC and EE of CBLO is calculated by Eqs. (1) and (2) in Section 3.5. According to the results of TGA, the LC and EE of CBLO are listed in Table 1. When the ratio of CBLO to chitosan increased from 0.25 to 1.25 (*w/w*), the percentage of LC increased from 17.77 to 33.43%. These results indicated that the percentage of LC depended on the initial CBLO concentration, which is consistent with the findings other studies—i.e., that the loading of krill oil, carvacrol, and eugenol in CS NPs is related to the initial concentration of the core material [36,41]. On the other hand, the EE ranged from 25.93% to 50.27%, and the maximum EE of 50.6% was obtained at the ratio of CBLO to chitosan of 0.25 (*w/w*). However, EE decreased with the increased ratio of CBLO to chitosan. The decrease in EE with the increasing of CBLO concentration indicated that CBLO loaded in CS@CBLO NPs is limited because the amount of chitosan is fixed. With an increasing CBLO concentration, the CBLO that can be encapsulated by chitosan gradually reaches saturation, resulting in a decrease in EE.


**Table 1.** The effect of different ratios of CBLO to chitosan on the loading capacity and encapsulation efficiency.
