EPD kinetics: A review

The colloidal approach has been studied as an essential step in the tailoring of ceramic nanostructures, but most colloidal processes are limited by the complexity of preparation of highly concentrated and stable Suspensions of nanoparticles and their fast ageing. Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) stands out as the most appropriate colloidal process to produce ceramic structures using low solid content sols and Suspensions (<1 g/l). This characteristic drastically increases its range of technological applicability to nanoparticle assembly, becoming an alternative to the evaporative coating processes. Modelling of this direct electrically driven assembly process is key for its application to the performance of new materials on length scales of approximately 1-100 nm. In this paper, the key contributions in this field to process control and development of the electrophoretic kinetics equation are summarised. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.