δ-Decalactone

δ-Decalactone is a hydrophobic natural cyclic lactone aroma compound with a creamy-coconut-peach aroma. It serves as a flavoring agent and a renewable monomer for ring-opening polymerization to prepare homopolymers and amphiphilic block copolymers, and it can self-assemble into degradable micelles for the encapsulation of hydrophobic molecules. δ-Decalactone is used in food flavoring and polymer materials research^[1][2]. In Vitro:δ-Decalactone undergoes TBD-catalyzed ROP with PEG under solvent-free and mild conditions to form amphiphilic diblock and triblock copolymers, which exhibit semicrystalline properties originating from the PEG blocks and amorphous PDL segments^[1].
δ-Decalactone (200 ppm; 48 h) shows a strong preference for the paraffin oil phase relative to the aqueous phase (P_∞ ≈ 9.8-10.0 in the absence of emulsifier); the addition of 1% sucrose stearate-palmitate emulsifier reduces the oil/water partition coefficient to 2.88-3.77, with no significant pH dependence at pH 4.5 and 5.2^[2].