This conference follows from the success of the previous conferences of the series held in 2002, 2005 and 2008. These tri-annual Electrophoretic Deposition (EPD) conferences are a leading venue for experts from academia and industry working on EPD and its application as a processing technique for fabrication of both traditional and new (nano)materials..

Electrophoretic deposition exploits an electric surface charge on particles in suspension, which migrate in the presence of an appropriate electric field enabling the consolidation of particles into films onto any shaped substrate or forming bulk components. Particles may be metallic, ceramic or organic such as biological entities. For its successful application, a basic understanding of colloidal stability, deposition kinetics, and the consolidation issues of the deposit is necessary.

EPD has been known since the last century. Earlier applications have been in the shaping of ceramic articles and in coating technology.

New areas of applications of EPD are the low-cost fabrication of composite materials, including fibre reinforced ceramics, polymer and composite coatings, nanocomposites, nanocrystalline multilayer structures, composite laminates, biomaterials, as well as porousand functional gradient materials.

Furthermore, EPD of electroceramic particulate materials gives potential advances in a number of applications, including piezoelectric motors, biomedical ultrasound probes and chemical sensors. Moreover EPD is being considered as an important tool in the area of nanotechnology as it enables the production of components of industrial shapes and dimensions from nanoscale elements such as nanoparticles, nanotubes or nanorods.There is also increasing interest in the use of EPD to manipulate biomolecules and biological entities, including natural polymers, proteins, bacteria and cells.

Participants will report on ongoing work in several laboratories world-wide, which is focused on establishing the scientific and engineering fundamental aspects of the EPD process and its applications. Although the basics of EPD are well-known and have been the subject of extensive research, there is still need for a deep, quantitative understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of EPD, in particular when 2- or 3-component suspensions are used with the aim to fabricate complex microstructures. Moreover, predictive models describing solid particle deposition rate in dependence of EPD parameters are scarce.

On the application side, it is expected that delegates from industry will focus on concrete applications of EPD, particularly on those areas of materials processing where EPD is being used with commercial success. The organisers believe that the full potential of the EPD technique for materials processing, including the fabrication of novel composite materials with complex microstructures, has not been fully exploited as yet. This has been confirmed by participants at the first three conferences, including industrial participants. This is the main motivation for the organisation of this fourth international event. The purpose is to maintain a continuing international and interdisciplinary conference series (with conferences organised every three years), which is the only international conference activity dealing specifically with EPD and attracting the participation of members of the materials science and electrochemistry communities. The fourth conference will constitute a unique, timely forum for the discussion of EPD relevant issues among experts active in research and development in this area. The success of the first three conferences and the interest generated by the publication of the conference proceedings and related journal special issues will lead to a larger number of participants to the fourth conference. We also plan to engage industrial participants by organising a special focus session on industrial applications of EPD.

Session topics and program
The program of the conference will follow a similar format to that of the first three previous conferences. Although some modifications may become necessary, the program will typically include sessions on the following topic areas:

1. Fundamentals of the EPD process and modelling
2. Novel experimental techniques
3. Traditional applications: ceramics
4. Traditional applications: metals and coatings
5. EPD in industrial applications and technology
6. Novel applications: composite materials, laminates, nanomaterials, functionally graded materials, materials for solid oxide fuel cells, nanostructured materials, carbon nanotube, biomaterials, etc.
7. EPD of biological entities such as bacteria, cells and proteins

Conference Organization
Prof. A. R. Boccaccini (Chair)
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
Department of Materials, Imperial College London, UK
Email: aldo.boccaccini@ww.uni-erlangen.de

Prof. O. van der Biest (Co-chair)
Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Email: omer.vanderbiest@mtm.kuleuven.ac.be

Prof. R. Clasen (Co-chair)
University of Saarland, Saarbruecken, Germany
Email: r.clasen@matsci.uni-sb.de

Prof. J. Dickerson (Co-chair)
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, USA
Email: james.dickerson@Vanderbilt.Edu

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