Electrokinetics: Advancing the Fundamentals

Electrokinetics involves the use of electrical fields and electrical forces (between surfaces and particles) to produce a motion of colloidal particles within a medium. This environment could be either a fluid, porous or fibrous medium. Notable applications include those related to environmental process such as the decontamination of water or a soil, the cleaning of water for drinking purposes and the decontamination of industrial effluents; electrostatics aspects in membrane-based separation processes is another excellent example as well as micro-filtration in electrically enhanced processes. Within this framework, a detailed analysis of particle-to-particle electrostatics forces, the experimental measurements of their magnitude and computer-based simulation approaches are relevant for the advance of processes and technology involving electrokinetics principles. Therefore, contributions with novel approaches related to fundamental principles, modeling, and experimental studies will be welcomed. We would like to have a balance between a given problem, the motivation, and the outcome related to the solution. However, purely experimental contributions describing new and novel aspects of electrokinetics will be welcomed as well as theories and computational efforts helping to improve understanding of outstanding fundamental problems.