Dear Colleagues,

Ionic liquids (ILs) are salts of organic cations and inorganic or organic anions, with low melting points (<100 °C, by definition). In the context of pharmaceutics, ionic liquids belong to a special class of ionic materials that are liquids at ambient temperature and show negligible vapor pressures with a wide range of temperature stabilities. The physical and chemical properties of ILs can be fine-tuned with the appropriate selection of cation and anions. In pharmaceutical sciences, ILs have been investigated as a crystallization media to engineer material properties of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API). Another important and emerging area is API-ionic liquid technology, where the solid API is turned into a liquid at ambient temperatures in order to address solubility or processing problems of APIs in drug products.

This Special Issue on “Ionic Liquids in Drug Delivery” is intended to inform and stimulate on-going and new interdisciplinary research activities on the development and novel applications of ionic liquids in pharmaceutical sciences. We invite regular articles, communications, and reviews covering wide range of topics covering utilization or formation of ionic liquid to improve the physicochemical properties of drug molecules. Examples of a few topics of interest are presented below;

• Ionic liquids as solvents and/or co-solvents for crystallization and processing pharmaceutical solids, such as in polymorphs, cocrystals, salts: Articles may cover fundamental and experimental studies on the design, characterization and structure–property relationships of a wide range of ILs with potentials in pharmaceutical crystallization. Studies on the role of ILs on nucleation crystal growth, habit and crystal structure will also be of high scientific interest.

• API-ionic liquids: A wide range of subjects dealing API-ionic liquids would be of high relevance, which include the formation of ionic liquids of diverse classes of APIs and structural insights, characterization, various formulation and drug delivery strategies applied to ILs, pharmacokinetic studies, etc.

We look forward to articles covering your exciting research on Ionic liquids.

Prof. Sitaram Velaga
Dr. Manishkumar Shimpi
Guest Editors

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