Micro-Encapsulation, “Rub’n’Sniff”, part I

Several instructables for DIY “Scratch and Sniff” exist, but based mostly on acrylic paint or starch these didn’t satisfy our needs so we are testing our own wits on this.

After looking into starch and gelatine, we decided we will try a new matrix medium for this, cyclodextrines, or cyclic dextrines.

Basically, dextrines are medium sized oligosaccharides, that is chains of sugars, in-between starch and sugars, malto-dextrine for instance is a common food ingredient and occurs when starch is heated dry (malted), and dextrines are also used for example as “glueing gum” on tabacco rolling paper.

Cyclodextrines are dextrines with a cyclic structure, and the “cavity” creates an hydrophobic interior but an hydrophilic exterior, so cyclodextrins can form complexes with hydrophobic compounds. Several possible forms exist.

Like everything digestable that doesn’t kill you instantly, cyclodextrines can be bought in bulk in bodybuilding shops as “high branched cyclic dextrine” or “cluster dextrine”. While the exact molecule(s) of this remains in the dark for us, this sounds promising enough as a matrix to embed small hydrophobic aroma chemical molecules.

In our next article we will test and see how this performs.