This book covers the basics of abiotic colloid characterization, of biocolloids and biofilms, the resulting transport phenomena and their engineering aspects. The contributors comprise an international group of leading specialists devoted to colloidal sciences. The contributions include theoretical considerations, results from model experiments, and field studies. The information provided here will benefit students and scientists interested in the analytical, chemical, microbiological, geological and hydrological aspects of material transport in aquatic systems and soils.

Fritz Frimmel holds the Chair of Water Chemistry and is director of the Research Laboratory of the German Gas and Water Association at the Engler-Bunte-Institute, University of Karlsruhe (TH). He studied chemistry, and made his doctorate and habilitation at the Technical University of Munich. He was research scholar at the University College Dublin and was visiting professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the Academy Nishnij Novgorod. He holds several prizes and international awards and is Honorary President of the Water Chemical Society Germany. Frank von der Kammer was born in 1966. He studied Cultural Sciences at the University of Lueneburg with Chemistry and Ecology as majors. He obtained his doctoral degree at the Hamburg University of Technology in the field of natural nanoparticle characterization. In 2005 he changed to Vienna University where he continues his research on natural and industrial nanoparticles in the environment as head of the Nanogeosciences Division in the Department for Environmental Geosciences. HansCurt Flemming (d.o.b. 1947) studied chemistry and received his Ph.D. at the MaxPlanckInstitute for Immunobiology in Freiburg. He established a Biofilm Research Group at the Institute for Civil Engineering in Stuttgart which he left in 1994 to organize the Biotechnology Group at the Institute for Civil Engineering, Technical University of Munich. In 1996 he took the chair for Aquatic Microbiology at the University of DuisburgEssen and since 2001 he is head of the Biofilm Centre of that university.