Applications in chemistry chemical engineering - Editorial overview

This year's Applications section contains four papers covering three relatively diverse areas in which fundamental colloid and interfacial phenomena are being used to either solve current engineering problems or to develop new and potentially useful processes, Two of the papers involve the selective separation of particles from a liquid dispersion. One technique common to both of these processes is air flotation, which continues to be the subject of a great. deal of research, A third paper in the section discusses the problem of lubricating the surface hard disk drives in computers. Effective solutions to this problem are critical to the continued development of higher density magnetic storage devices. The final paper in the section describes the current, level of understanding and of electro- and magneto-rheological fluids, along with an overview of the many potential applications of these materials.