ECIS Solvay Award 2023 for Professor von Klitzing
Studies on foams stabilised with soft particles and polymers awarded
2023/09/15 by eml
Regine von Klitzing and her team at the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics have received the ECIS Solvay Award 2023 for their recent pioneering studies on foams stabilised with soft particles and polymers. The award was presented at the European Colloid and Interface Society (ECIS) conference in Naples, Italy.
The prize has been awarded once a year since 2001, and for the first time a female scientist has now been honoured.
Foams stabilised by soft polymer particles are interesting for many applications, for example in food technology or catalysis. There, proteins play an important role as foam stabilisers, but their stabilisation mechanism depends very much on the specific class of proteins, and it is difficult to gain insight into unifying concepts due to their great diversity. Therefore, more controllable model systems are required. A suitable model system for soft and deformable particles are microgel particles, which the team is researching.
What distinguishes the work of Professor von Klitzing and her team is the combination of different techniques and their development, as well as that of experiment and modelling. The uniqueness of the group's studies lies in relating the structural and mechanical properties of foam stabilisers and their stabilising performance of foam films to foam properties.