9 Aug 2013
Beatrice Cattoz received a Rideal Travel Bursary to attend the 4th International Conference on Colloid Chemistry and Physiochemical Mechanics which was held in Moscow, Russia from 30 June - 6 July. Here she reports on her experiences:
I had the opportunity to deliver two oral presentations on my current work. The first was a key lecture entitled: Probing nanoparticluate interactions with biological system: the importance of surface chemistry. This paper investigated the interactions between novel particluates with specific surface chemistry and the mucus barrier for drug delivery applications.
The second an oral report entitled: Polymeric micelle disruption by cosolvents and surfactants: effects of alcohol chain length and surfactant charge. Polymeric surfactants are frequently used to solubilize sparingly water soluble additives, often in conjunction with non-polymeric surfactant s and cosolvents. In this study, the structure of the micelles formed by one such polymeric surfactant, Pluronic P123, have been characterized in the presence of C12 chain surfactants (anionic, cationic and non-ionic) and alcohols with increasing chain length.
Delivering these presentations allowed me to take questions from fellow academics working in a similar field and explore new ideas. It also generated valuable discussions post presentation on some of the techniques I am using (Small angle neutron scattering and NMR diffusometry).
The themes of the conference were very relevant to my personal research but also to my research group, i.e. lyophilic colloid systems, naomaterials, adsorption and surface phenomena, foams, stability of colloids systems… Several famous colloid scientists delivered plenary lectures during this conference. My personal highlight was to listen to the lecture delivered by Professor Bjorn Lindman in which he reported very interesting findings on polyelectrolyte-surfactant association, from fundamentals to applications
This conference enabled me to identify and meet colloid scientist studying similar fields, which might lead to new collaborations in the near future.
As a result of the financial assistance received from the SCI/RSC Rideal Trust I had the opportunity to present my results to an international group of researchers and was able to find out more about both colloid science and the culture of Russia.
Beatrice Cattoz
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