After a short period of degassification, the bubble-free hot-solutions were left to cool down to 55 ◦C before being spread over a glass plate using an automatic film applicator at a constant application speed of 0.3 mm/s.Clearly,film solutions with more LBG were easier to process due to their greater viscosity(Fig. 1) and lower gelling character(Fig. 2).During the drying stage,the solvent was
evaporated leading to a significant volume reduction of the film-forming solutions.In our case,the film solutions took typically 2h to dry (climate chamber at 40 ◦C and 30% R.H.),except the pure LBG solution that needed 30 min more at the defined drying conditions.
Upon drying,all films were very easy to remove from the glass supports. Solutions with more LBG (more viscous; Fig. 1) led to films with more uniform thicknesses(±1m; Table 1) than solutions
with more agar(less viscous;pure NA,pure AA and 75/25 AA/LBG; Fig. 1) (±2m; Table 1).