17th annual meeting of the European Colloid and Interface Science Society

ECIS2003, 21–26 September, 2003, Firenze, Italy

From the beginning, the motivation for the ECIS conferences has been to bring together and promote the exchange of views between scientists working in Colloid and Interface Science, from both academic and industrial research centers, and from other disciplines which Colloid Science underpins. The subject is presently in a state of rapid development. New perspectives and paradigms coming into focus that span chemistry, biology, physics, and nanomaterials sciences have broken down barriers between previously disjoint disciplines. ECIS meetings are necessarily now multidisciplinary. About 600 participants have contributed to the meeting with oral and poster presentations on Interactions in Colloids and at Interfaces (dispersive interactions, charged colloids, hydrophobic effect, colloidal stability), Industrial Applications: Colloid Science in Action, Colloids for Drug Delivery (drug delivery, encapsulation and host–guest systems for controlled release in the colloidal domain), New Methods of Investigation (3D imaging, scattering, diffusion and microscopy techniques for probing colloids and interfaces), Inorganic Colloids (nanoparticles, organic–inorganic hybrids, hierarchical structures, new templates), Interfacial Chemistry (liquid–liquid, liquid–solid, liquid–gas interfaces, confined colloids near an interface, colloids of low dimension, adsorption, depletion, segregation, phase transitions), Biocolloids and Biomaterials (chemistry and physics of biological colloids, design of biocolloids, biomineralisation), and Colloids in Nature and Art (clays, food, conservation of cultural heritage, new application of colloids and interfaces).

The meeting was organised by Piero Baglioni, Pierandrea Lo Nostro and Barry W. Ninham and supported by Consorzio Sistemi a Grande Interfase (CSGI, Firenze), Università degli Studi di Firenze, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and several sponsors (http://www.csgi.unifi.it/ecis.html).

This collection provides an overview of the state of the art and also forms a basis for further research in the field of Colloid and Interface Science.

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