In the particle technology, it is fundamentally important to know the interaction and adhesive forces between particles and to find the correlation of those forces with the microscopic characteristics of particle surface, because these forces are the origin of many phenomena which particles exhibit in industrial processes. The aim of this project is to clarify in-situ at the molecular level the microstructure of surfaces in solutions of industrial importance and the correlation with interaction and adhesive forces between surfaces, using not only an atomic force microscope (AFM) but also computer simulations.
It was planned to clarify the phenomena and mechanism on the subjects shown in the map of the following figure, which were considered to be fundamental in understanding the phenomena in industrial particle processes.