The Future of Colloid Science

The past few decades have seen major advances in colloid science on both the theoretical and experimental fronts, and there is every reason to believe that further rapid progress will continue. 

Early theories of colloidal dispersions, such as the DLVO theory (Chapter 9) and Einstein s theory of viscosity (Chapter 8). were, of necessity, limited in their applicability to very dilute dispersions. They gave general guidance, however, in the search for att understanding of more concentrated dispersions and formed the basis from which more recent progress has evolved. 

The need to understand the behaviour of concentrated dispersions, while m intellectual goal in itself, has become increasingly relevant as the industrial exploitation of colloidal systems has developed. This challenge has been taken up and has provided the stimulus for a great deal of recent work, and no doubt it will continue to do so. 

This chapter summarises briefly some of these recent developments and indicates the broad areas in which further advances are likely to be made. 

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This book is divided into five parts as follows Part I Historieal Perspeetive Part II Structural Aspects and Characterization of Microemulsions Part III Reactions in Microemulsions Part IV Applications of Microemulsions and Part V Future Prospects. The book opens with the chapter on the historical development of microemulsion systems by two leading authorities (Lindman and Friberg) who have significantly contributed to the field of microemulsions. In the next two chapters J. Th. G. Overbeek (the doyen of colloid science) and coworkers and E. Ruckenstein advance different approaches to describe the thermodynamics of microemulsion systems. While a full description of microemulsion thermodynamics is far from complete, the droplet type model predicts the experimental observations quite well. A theory that predicts the global phase behavior and the detailed properties of the phases as a function of experimentally adjustable parameters is still under development. 

L/evelopment of sophisticated surface analytical techniques over the past two decades has revived interest in the study of phenomena that occur at the electrode-solution interface. As a consequence of this renewed activity, electrochemical surface science is experiencing a rapid growth in empirical information. The symposium on which this book was based brought together established and up-and-coming researchers from the three interrelated disciplines of electrochemistry, surface science, and metal-cluster chemistry to help provide a better focus on the current status and future directions of research in electrochemistry. The symposium was part of the continuing series on Photochemical and Electrochemical Surface Science sponsored by the Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry of the American Chemical Society. 

Oct. 24,1895, Kishinev, Russia, now Chisinau, Moldova - May 27, 1976, Moscow, USSR, now Russia) After graduating from the technical college in Odessa (1912) and probation in StraCburg and Bern, he had taken an external degree of Novorossiisk University (1915). The early studies of Frumkin of -> electrocapillary phenomena at electrified interfaces (thesis, 1919) determined his future key directions in electrochemistry and colloid chemistry, continued later in Moscow in the Karpov Physico-chemical Institute (starting from 1922), Moscow University (starting from 1930 in 1933 he founded the Dept, of Electrochemistry there), and in the Institute of Colloid Chemistry and Electrochemistry later transformed into the Institute of Physical Chemistry. Finally, in 1958 Frumkin founded the Institute of Electrochemistry of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and headed it up to his death. 

We are optimistic about the future of acoustics in colloid science. It is amazing what this technique can do especially in combination with electroacoustics for characterizing electric surface properties. We hope that this review will allow you to taste the power and opportunities related to these sound-based techniques. 

Having defined our framework of adhesion theory and measurement, it is then possible to cover the different application areas of adhesion science in Chapters 9-16. Starting with the adhesion of particles, which is fundamental to a molecular argument, we move on to colloids, pastes, and cells. Then the industrial areas are covered in electronics, films, adhesive joints, and composite materials (see Fig. 1.17). Finally, there is a discussion of the future of adhesion and how the description of adhesion phenomena may develop in the years to come. 

These prospecting aspects require such a lot of innovation that the future of cluster and colloid science can be viewed with great optimism. It is further hoped that this field of science will lead to a continued cooperation between physicists, chemists, and material scientists. Hardly another discipline is as well suited for this as cluster and colloid science. 

In the natural history of life on Earth, many artifacts ended with only a brief Ufespan. Many fields of science disappeared soon after they were announced by some prophet. Staudinger could have been one of those prophets, but in fact he persevered until his own mistaken thoughts were unable to derail the birth of polymer science. If colloid science had followed Wolfgang Ostwald, instead of The Svedberg, it would still be a swamp of irreproducible artifacts and useless speculations, expressed in a language that no outsider could comprehend. In fact, colloid science is today a thriving scientific community. Polymer science has become an even bigger community. But the future will be characterized by a multidisciplinary effort that includes all the fields noted in the Introduction. 

Questions similar to these are being researched by chemical engineers who are active in the broad field of colloid and interface science. Future contributions by chemical engineers may be the key to the success of the EPID concept in visual display applications. 

In this chapter we have mentioned only a few of the more important future developments which can be foreseen in colloid science. Many of these will depend on the availability of modern instrumentation and of powerful computer facilities. In addition to the techniques dealt with in this chapter, mention should also be made of the contributions from greatly improved electron microscopic techniques, ultracentrifuges, and X-ray equipment. Other techniques that will become of increasing significance include dielectric measurements, electrical birefringence, and time-resolved fluorescence. 

Douaire, M. and I. Norton, Designer colloids in structured food for the future. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 2013. 93 3147-3154. 

The theory of electroviscoelasticity using fractional approach constimtes a new interdisciplinary approach to colloid and interface science. Hence, (1) more degrees of freedom are in the modeL (2) memory storage considerations and hereditary properties are included in the model, and (3) history or impact to the present and future is in the game. 

Other aspects of the interactions of lipids and bilayer structures in biological systems can be understood in the context of molecular geometry, association phenomena, and general interfacial interactions. Unfortunately, those topics are too broad to be included here. It will be interesting to see how future research in molecular biology is able to incorporate the fundamentals of surface and colloid science into a better understanding of the function of membranes, cells, and entire organisms. 

Finally, a few words are in order on research trends in the field, current and future ones. Colloid and surface science is not just an area of extensive applications but also an active field of research in essentially all its dimensions. Even a brief account of research trends in colloids and interfaces would require a separate book. We have nevertheless attempted to present research examples throughout the book, via case studies and problems, some of them taken from industrially-oriented applications. Several examples have been presented in the fields of paints, wetting and adhesion, surface characterization, surfactants and foams in Chapters 3,5,6 and 13. 

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