I have just been curious lately to understand the chemistry of any chemicals I might be taking, and the first thing that stood out to me is how almost every chemical has a HCl version and a freebase version (I'm sure there are more but these seem the most common). What are these bases for? The only thing I have found on them is that the HCl form is soluble while the freebase form is not.
Consider a small organic molecule (<500 g/mol), freshly synthesized, it is in its pure state, it has no non-covalent ionic bonds. A salt of the molecule is often made to produce a new crystal structure. This is done for many reasons: it typically is easier to handle, it raises the melting point, and as the previous Poster stated it increases the solubility in water. Such characteristics are advantageous in the pharmaceutics of drug production.
