Interfinish 2020
In this issue of Transactions we are delighted to feature some of the papers given at Interfinish2020 which, after being postponed in September 2020 due to Covid19, was held on-line, 6–8 September 2021. The event was brilliantly organised by the Surface Finishing Society of Japan, co-organised by Nagoya University and supported by the International Union for Surface Finishing (IUSF). More than 300 talks were given, with additional poster presentations. Those included here make up, as of necessity, only a small selection but we hope they give readers a feel for the event.
Takumi Kameshima and Yukihiro Sakamoto describe a study into plasma etching for carbon materials by inward RF plasma apparatus, while Il-Cho Park and Seong-Jong Kim report on cavitation erosion characteristics of hard chromium plated diesel engine cylinder liners. A new pyrimidine derivative-based cyanide-free silver electroplating bath is described by Atiqah Binti Jasni and colleagues, and Hideuki Kanematsu (an IMF Fellow who was part of the hard-working conference organising body), M. Takayanagi et al. examined biofilms formed on metallic materials by E. coli and S. epidermidis, and their evaluation by crystal violet staining and its reflection.
The surface morphology of silver thin films exposed to water vapour and/or oxygen in vacuum has been investigated by Hiroteru Ohara, Midori Kawamura, Yoshio Abe and Takayuki Kiba. Yen Ngoc Nguyen, Jongmin Lee and Injoon Son report on a novel silver-enhanced hard gold electrodeposit applied for electrical contacts, comparing it with conventional gold–cobalt alloy deposits which contain higher gold content, and are thus correspondingly more costly.
The industrial Bulletin section of this issue features two contributions from the conference, one from IMF General Secretary Graham Armstrong discussing environmental and legislative impacts on anti-corrosion primers and paints in relation to their use in aerospace applications, and the other from Transactions Executive Editor, Clive Larson, on structural aspects and future challenges, particularly from the likely increasing future use of robotics and other smart technology, for the global surface finishing industry.
Friends passed on
Sad news reached us recently of the untimely deaths of two friends and supporters of the Institute. One was Dr Tony Hart FIMF who had a lifelong involvement with the IMF. He had only retired from and sold his business a few months ago, and his award of the Institute’s Hothersall Medal was announced only recently at the last Institute AGM in December of last year. A formal obituary will be featured in Transactions in due course.
The other was Dr Asta Cesuniene from Vilnius Centre for Physical Sciences and Technology, a Sustaining Member organisation of the IMF, who published regularly in the journal. Dr Cesuniene passed away after a serious illness while the latest paper from her group was being published on-line, and in her memory this latest paper is published in this issue.
Size of papers submitted to Transactions – a reminder to authors
Over recent years the editors of Transactions have become concerned about an apparent trend in the increasing length of papers submitted to the journal. Whilst it is encouraging that researchers have much to write about their results, and review authors find an increasing amount in the literature of our field to assess, and that they continue to choose Transactions in which to publish their work, there is a practical problem. This arises because we are unable to publish the number of papers that we would like to in each issue, and thus continue to give readers the same wide spectrum of areas of interest they’ve always had. Put simply, the longer submitted papers become, the less papers we can publish in a fixed number of issue pages, and increasing journal page numbers results in unacceptable cost increases. We ask, therefore, that future contributions to Transactions are kept within a limit of 4500 words, excluding figure captions and tables. Some readers will note that this figure is an increase in the historical limit given in our Instructions to Authors, and we hope that this compromise can be adhered to, allowing us to continue giving best value to readers in the surface finishing community.