Many substances of forensic interest are chiral and available either as racemates or pure enantiomers. Application of chiral analysis in biological samples can be useful for the determination of legal or illicit drugs consumption or interpretation of unexpected toxicological effects. Chiral substances can also be found in environmental samples and revealed to be useful for determination of community drug usage (sewage epidemiology), identification of illicit drug manufacturing locations, illegal discharge of sewage and in environmental risk assessment. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the application of chiral analysis in biological and environmental samples and their relevance in the forensic field. Most frequently analytical methods used to quantify the enantiomers are liquid and gas chromatography using both indirect, with enantiomerically pure derivatizing reagents, and direct methods recurring to chiral stationary phases.

Background/problem statement: Flubendazole (FBZ) has a great potential for the treatment of lymphatic filariasis in humans, but is poorly absorbed in the current formulations available due its low solubility in water. Objective: The present work describes the synthesis and characterization of FBZ cocrystals in combination with carboxilics acids. Methods: Mechanochemical liquid-assisted grinding method was used to obtain mixtures corresponding to 1:1 stoichiometric ratios of flublendazole and the cocrystal former. The mixtures were evaluated by X-ray powder diffraction (Bruker D8 Advance). Results: The XRPD patterns (Fig.1) show a potential cocrystal formation with maleic acid and no evidence of cocrystal with aspirin as former. Conclusions: The combination of flubendazole with maleic acid with application of mechanosynthesis has great potential to obtain cocrystals and can represent a new way for the development of a new oral solid dosage form containing flubendazole.