Editorial

Earlier this year, the IMF organised a conference, TransFair 2013, on developments in coatings and surface treatments in the transportation industries - air, land and sea.1 This issue features a number of papers and industrial articles based on presentations given at that event, plus several other papers relevant to that theme.

Thus, in the following pages, scribe testing for corrosion resistance of an acrylate co-polymer coating with incorporated corrosion inhibitor particles, giving self-healing properties, is described by J. Cooke and P. Dodds. T. Gough and colleagues discuss the use of ethylenediamine disuccinic acid (EDDS) as an environmentally friendly process in metal surface treatment, and features and applications of the Nitrotec enhanced nitrocarburising process are given by S. Plumb.

Magnetron sputtered PVD coatings for demanding applications in the emerging hydrogen economy are described by K. E. Cooke and H. Sun, and in an interesting article by J. den Hartog, a new design of oven, for treatment of powder and cataphoretic paint coatings, based on long wave infrared (dark) radiation/convection technology, is revealed, giving reduced enamelling time and energy-saving.

Weight and energy saving in aerospace and automobile components by use of LED-UV curing of paint systems for coated plastics, and conducting polymers is explored by J. Hope, and improvement in the life of trivalent chromium passivation baths and product performance, by use of incorporated ceramic nanoparticles is described by A. S. and J. S. Kulkarni.

The first of a 2-part review on electroless amorphous and nanoalloy deposition is given by Chinese Academy of Sciences member Prof. B. W. Zhang and colleagues, appropriately given China’s reported approximately 40% share of the present electroless nickel market.

Also from TransFair 2013, N. Godja and W. Hansal and their co-workers describe pulsed plasma electrolytic oxidation processes for aeronautical applications.

Other contributions in this issue include two papers on surface treatment of magnesium alloys, with increasing applications in transportation, one on molybdate conversion coatings (C. M. Zhao et al.) and the second, by A. Da Forno and colleagues on micro-arc anodic oxides.

Plenty of interest, we believe, for all our readers.