My Favorite Chemical!!

 Cyclodextrins

Image taken from Saffarionpour S. Nanoencapsulation of hydrophobic food flavor ingredients and their cyclodextrin inclusion complexes. Food and Bioprocess Technology. 2019;12(7):1157-1173. doi:10.1007/s11947-019-02285-z

Cyclodextrins are amazing! There is a lot of research going on about them! Cyclodextrins are cyclic oligosaccharides, which are consisted of units of D-glucopyranose, linked in α (1-4). Typical cyclodextrins have six, seven, or eight glucose units, known as α-cyclodextrin, β-cyclodextrin, and γ-cyclodextrin respectively. 

They have been used as food perseverant especially for essential oils used in food. They provide stabilization for these oils avoid evaporating, or to oxidase by light due the formation of a complex.  Their structure is hollow, and truncated-cone shape, which is made up of several glucose units, bound covalently and linked together by oxygen atoms and held in shape through hydrogen bonds formed between hydroxyl groups at the cavity with wider rim.