Jan 13 2011
This conference follows from the success of the previous conferences of the series held in 2002, 2005 and 2008. These tri-annual Electrophoretic Deposition (EPD) conferences are a leading venue for experts from academia and industry working on EPD and its application as a processing technique for fabrication of both traditional and new (nano)materials.
Electrophoretic deposition exploits an electric surface charge on particles in suspension, which migrate in the presence of an appropriate electric field enabling the consolidation of particles into films onto any shaped substrate or forming bulk components. For its successful application, a basic understanding of the colloidal stability, the deposition kinetics, and the constrained drying and sintering issues of the deposit is necessary. Earlier applications of EPD have been in the shaping of ceramic articles and in coating technology. New areas of applications of EPD are the low-cost fabrication of composite and nanostructured materials, including metal-ceramic and polymer nanocomposites, nanocrystalline multilayer structures, composite laminates, biomaterials and functional gradient materials. Furthermore, EPD of electroceramic particulate materials gives potential advances in a number of applications, including piezoelectric motors, biomedical ultrasound probes, chemical sensors as well as multifunctional and bioactive coatings. Moreover EPD is being considered as an important tool in the area of nanotechnology as it enables the production of components of industrial shapes and dimensions from nanoscale elements such as nanoparticles, nanotubes or nanorods. There is also increasing interest in the use of EPD to manipulate biomolecules and biological entities, including natural polymers, proteins, bacteria and cells.
This 2011 meeting will continue the conference tradition of high quality contributions of relevance to both industrial and academic participants, with topics ranging from the fundamental science of EPD to the engineering and applications of the technique in materials processing.
The program will consist of invited and solicited oral and poster presentations.
Sessions topics will include but will not be restricted to:
- Fundamentals of the EPD process and modelling
- Novel experimental techniques
- Traditional applications: ceramics and polymers
- Traditional applications: metals and coatings
- EPD in industrial applications and technology
- Novel applications: composite materials, laminates, nanomaterials, functionally graded materials, materials for solid oxide fuel cells, nanostructured materials, carbon nanotubes, biomaterials, etc.
- EPD of biological entities such as bacteria, cells and proteins