Mechanochemistry of organic solids: where are we now?

The studies of the mechanical action on molecular organic
crystals include: a) fundamental research of the chemical
interactions and of the mechanisms of dynamic and structural
transitions in various molecular systems, and b) applied research with potential applications in such fields as pharmaceutical industry and the industry of biologically active compounds, with a special accent on those utilizing the industrial wastes. The following main topics have been discussed at INCOME-2008 in Jamshedpur: 1) mechanical action and chemical interactions (probing the mechanical properties of individual bonds in single molecules by direct expansion in AFM, or studying distortion of individual intra- and intermolecular bonds in molecular crystals on hydrostatic compression using X-ray diffraction and vibrational spectroscopy (FTIR, Raman) in situ); 2) mechanical action and phase transitions studied in relation to the control of the polymorphism of drugs, molecular materials, as well as inrelation to the conformational transitions in biopolymers; 3) mechanochemical synthesis of new compounds and molecular cocrystals; 4) mechanochemistry of the “molecular crystal - excipient” systems, which is closely related to the mechanochemistry of phase transitions, and the mechanochemistry of polymers; 5) mechanochemical extraction of bioactive molecular compounds from natural resources and wastes.