Keynote Talk: Sugar and Salt - A Fresh Look at Well-Known Ingredients

Ionic cocrystals have recently gained attention as multi-component pharmaceutical materials capable of improving the physicochemical properties of the respective pharmaceutically active compound. Contrastingly, ionic cocrystals between common carbohydrates and alkali or alkaline earth halides have been investigated since the beginning of chemistry and most notably in the context of food science. Throughout several centuries, these compounds have been inspected with the specific perspective of contemporary interest. In most cases, they can conveniently be prepared from the ionic salt and the respective neutral carbohydrate via direct solution crystallization and therefore offer an opportunity for fundamental studies in the fields of crystal engineering, bridging food science and solid-state chemistry. Certainly ionic cocrystals remain an underexplored class of compounds and this talk gives an overview of the work that has been performed until today, hoping to elicit further contributions in the discipline.