Abstract: A circulating coolant reservoir is used to uniformly cool a removable crucible in an electron beam gun assembly for vaporizing material to be deposited at another location. The outer surface of the crucible is substantially immersed in the coolant reservoir and coolant is circulated around the outer surface from diametrically opposed inlet and outlet lines whose axes are tangent to the reservoir walls and with an upwardly spiraling groove in the crucible outer surface.

Abstract: A device and method for cooling the edge of a top plate which partially surrounds an evaporant pocket in an electron beam gun. The invention involves the passage of coolant through a channel in the top plate. The channel is substantially parallel to and close enough to the edge of the top plate so that re-evaporation of evaporant condensed on the edge of the top plate is substantially prevented.

Abstract: The invention comprises a method for producing a protein enriched food or feed product and products thereof. The method entails forming a mixture of water and a food or feed product, sterilizing the mixture, innoculating the sterilized mixture with a spawn culture of the genus Pleurotus, maintaining the innoculated mixture in the presence of air at a temperature of from about 5.degree. to about 46.degree. C. so as to enable the mycelium of the spawn culture to grow, and later terminating the growth of the mycelium. The food or feed product resulting from this process has an increased protein content.