Editorial by Didier Coulomb

Besides its scientific and technological commissions, the IIR has set up working parties dealing with specific topics. These working parties have in some cases provided the IIR's actions with greater legitimacy and international recognition in state-of-the-art technological fields. The Working Party on Ice Slurries was set up in 1998 and is a good example of how much can be achieved by such a group of experts. The 6th IIR Workshop on Ice Slurries and the IIR-co-sponsored Conference on Phase-Change Materials and Slurry held in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland on June 15-17, 2005 were milestone events in the life of this working party. A Handbook on Ice Slurries was published in time for these events: it is a major tangible produced thanks to the work of several lead authors and authors conducted since 1998; a Technical Note on Ice Slurry: a Promising Technology was published in 2004, and a special issue of the Internal Journal of Refrigeration on this topic. The success of these 2 conferences, held jointly for the first time, has led to an extension of the scope of this working party, which will now deal with phase-change slurries for refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat-pump applications. The next event, to be held in Marrakech in September 2006, along with subsequent events in the series, will therefore be called IIR Phase Change Slurry Conference. I seize this opportunity to thank the previous Presidents of this working party, the authors of the handbook and the workshop and conference organizers, particularly Dr Peter W. Egolf and Prof. Michael Kauffeld. Mrs Laurence Fournaison has taken over as President of the working party: I wish her all the best and am sure she will carry on the tradition of this group: ice slurries may not appear to be scintillating to the uninitiated, but are in fact a highly promising field. Didier Coulomb Director of the IIR