Objective
Colloidal systems such as foams, emulsions and dispersions are widely used in industrial applications and everyday products, e.g. for household and personal care, pharmacy and food. However, the reason for their stability - or instability - is not yet unde rstood in sufficient detail. The reason is that we lack fundamental knowledge of the anisotropic environment which is induced by an interface and is then perturbed by the confinement between two neighbouring interfaces. These confinement-induced changes gi ve rise to interactions between the interfaces, which can be attractive or repulsive, and typically have a range of less than 100 nm. Most of these interactions are related to changes in the organisation within thin liquid films and interfacial (adsorption ) layers, but so far we do not know exactly how. SOCON aims to combine knowledge about the nanoscale organisation in bulk, at a single interface and between two interfaces in order to fully understand and predict the interaction forces between two interfac es across a confinement. SOCON will focus on the following complex issues of high industrial relevance: (1) Self-organisation of multicomponent systems at interfaces, (2) Trapped non-equilibrium states in polymer-surfactant systems, (3) The relations betwe en structure and surface forces, (4) The correlation between the properties of microscopic films and those of the corresponding colloidal systems, and (5) Incorporation of ecologically more friendly components in products (including the synthesis of novel composite polymers and surfactants from natural building blocks). The goal of SOCON is to gain a better understanding of the role interfacial layers and thin aqueous films have for the properties of colloidal systems. SOCON will counteract fragmentation by collaboration between scientists with experimental and theoretical competence relevant to self-organisation under confinement and surface forces. The multi-disciplinarity of the network participants and the
Fields of science
- natural sciencesphysical sciencescondensed matter physicssoft matter physics
- natural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciences
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicsproduction economicsproductivity
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculescarbohydrates
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacy
Keywords
Call for proposal
FP6-2002-MOBILITY-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
RTN - Marie Curie actions-Research Training NetworksCoordinator
DUBLIN 4
Ireland