Review

There is an optional quiz at the end of this review. It is not graded and does not count toward your overall score for the course.

Colloid science is broad and many aspects of it are complex and theoretical. This is often perceived within industry as being too overwhelming to apply to resolving issues with products that are themselves colloids.

This section has shown that the most fundamental concepts of colloid science can be described in more manageable terms that allow them to be easily applied to real-world challenges.

By taking the time to consider the nature of the objective and having an awareness of the colloid science concepts that exist, it is possible to pick those concepts that best suit the objective. For this case study, the relevant concepts are particle attraction and repulsion, adsorption, aggregation and sedimentation.

All of these concepts have been described at a level for practical use without a single mathematical equation and with just a small number of paragraphs. Heavy use of theory and extensive text are two of the reasons that people can be unwilling – or are not given the organizational support – to learn the fundamental concepts.