Review

This course has shown that applying a few basic principles of colloid science can streamline completion of objectives associated with the development or maintenance of liquid dispersion products.

As mentioned at the start regarding nomenclature, the most important message to be taken from this course is to answer this question:

Can the fundamental concepts of colloid science be applied to my products to improve their quality and reduce waste?

To answer this question requires clear definition of the objective, the likely barriers to meeting the objective, and an analysis of where, if possible, basic concepts of colloid science can help. It is most likely that just a few concepts will be required and, in those cases, detailed theoretical understanding will not be necessary. The choice of concepts to employ will be influenced by the availability of resources. These include human resource, materials, production equipment, and instrumentation.

In addition to increasing the likelihood of success of reaching a given objective, the approach outlined in this course offers other benefits over the wasteful hit-and-miss and firefighting approaches often used, notably in the manufacturing stages of commercial products:

• Colloid science-based resolution of an issue increases confidence that it offers a long-term and robust solution.
• Should a similar problem arise again for the same product, or a different one, the learnings from the original colloid science-based investigation can be applied. This is in contrast to the fire-fighting approach that often offers no insight into why a stop-gap fix appeared to have worked previously.

The case study use for this free mini course is relatively simple. The study itself included additional work not shown here and also led to subsequent activities such as physical and chemical stability studies.

The premium version of the course expands on this one with additional, more complex case studies and extended descriptions of the fundamental concepts of colloid science.

If you have any comments or questions regarding this course, please use the link provided in the feedback survey at the end.