The 2026 Zsigmondy Colloquium took place at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg from 16 to 18 March 2026. This year’s scientific programme focused on characterization tools for colloidal systems, offering a broad and engaging overview of methodologies and strategies to visualize, analyse and interpret colloidal properties along the entire process chain — from synthesis and self-assembly to the performance of dispersions, particles and functional materials.
More than 70 participants contributed to a lively scientific exchange, with the programme comprising 25 contributed talks and 25 poster presentations. Four keynote lectures highlighted the breadth and relevance of colloid and interface science in modern materials research and applications. Prof. Andreas Fery from the Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research Dresden discussed plasmonic metamaterials, Dr. Malvina Supper from the University of Tokyo presented metal-organic frameworks for chromatography, Prof. Soraya Caixeiro introduced the design of lasing systems based on colloidal particles, and Prof. Markus Retsch from the University of Bayreuth explored thermal insulators derived from colloidal assemblies.
The German Colloid Society gratefully acknowledges the support of Springer Nature, who sponsored the awards for the best oral presentation and the best poster contributions. The award for the best oral presentation was presented to Martin Selin from the University of Gothenburg for his talk “Tether-Mediated Capture of Colloids at Liquid Interfaces”. The two best poster awards went to Jyoti Jyoti from FAU for “Kinetic Monte Carlo Simulations for Twinned Nanoparticle Growth” and Carina Bittner from FAU for “Synthetic Melanosomes as a Tunable Model for Shape-Dependent Photonic Crystal Formation”.
The organizers also gratefully acknowledge the generous support of CRC 1411 “Design of Particulate Products”, RTG 2767 “Supracolloidal Structures”, CRC 1585 “MultiTrans”, the Interdisciplinary Center for Functional Particle Systems, and the FAU Competence Center Engineering of Advanced Materials. Their contributions were instrumental in making the 2026 Zsigmondy Colloquium a successful and stimulating meeting for the colloid and interface science community.
