Potsdam conference focuses on all aspects of foams technology
Richardson bursar Nita Aryanti reports from the 6th European Conference on Foam, Emulsion and Application Eufoam 2006 held in July 2006
 The 6th European Conference on Foam Emulsion and Application was organised by the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Golm, Potsdam. It was held from 2-6 July 2006 in Potsdam, Germany.
The conference focused on several different themes, including the characterisation of liquid layers and films, physics of foams and emulsions, stabilisation and destabilisation of foams and emulsions, rheology of interfacial layers, liquid films, foams and emulsions, interrelation between properties of adsorption layers, liquid films and foams/emulsions, new experimental techniques for producing emulsions and foams, microgravity in foam and emulsion science as well as industrial processes and applications.
The invited lecturers came from Europe, America and Australia and all of them were expert in their research of emulsions or foams. There were lively discussions about discrete microfluids, foam rheology on bubble scale, foam film drainage, stability of water-in-oil emulsions, microfluidic assembly of colloidal shells, foam properties and the stability of foams and emulsions.
My own research is focused on the fundamentals of membrane emulsification and a new development, the rotating membrane emulsification reactor (RMR). This has many advantages over conventional emulsification processes. By using the RMR, the size and size distribution of droplets can be carefully controlled through the selection of the porous membrane, efflux rate of discontinuous phase, and the cross flow velocity found in continuous phase. My own personal challenge is to investigate and examine the RMR performance for single and multiple emulsion production as well as microcapsule production.
I presented a poster entitled, ‘Single and Multiple Emulsions Production using a Rotating Membrane’, which prompted much discussion with the participants. They were interested in my research and offered some helpful ideas and questions.
The conference was very well organised, not only because of way the topics were arranged but because participants could submit articles to the formal conference proceedings, Colloid and Surfaces: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects. I was pleased to meet other researchers and present my research, and I also learned more about emulsions.
Finally, I am very grateful to the Society of Chemical industry for their financial support which enabled me to participate in the Eufoam conference.
Nita Aryanti
University of Leeds
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