Summary
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 on the molecular level the microstructures of surfaces in various solutions of industrial importance and their correlation with interaction and adhesive forces between surfaces, using not only an atomic force microscope (AFM) but also computer simulations.
The solutions employed here were classified into to two kinds of large categories: aqueous solutions and non-aqueous solutions. The investigations were conducted step by step, picking up the subjects given in Fig.1, successively. The abstracts for each subject obtained in this study are listed below as well as the reports of this year. We consider that the major important mechanisms for the correlations between microscopic characteristics of particle surface and their interaction and adhesive forces in solutions are clarified at least qualitatively. When the details of the contents are needed, they are given in the previous reports and in the papers listed at the abstracts.