Cyclodextrins: a new group of industrial basic materials.

Adequate toxicological studies, discovery of numerous potential fields of utilization and last but not least, the production of cyclodextrins on industrial scale with high homogeneity and low price led to their recognition as a new group of industrial basic materials. Until now cyclodextrins were considered merely as agents for molecular encapsulation, however intensive research of the past few years revealed quite new and unexpected aspects: cyclodextrins, their derivatives and polymers can be applied--not exclusively due to their complexing ability--in foods, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, chromatography, pesticide formulations, in photochemistry, etc.