In october I was continuing the study of stability of homogeneous citrate solutions with various concentrations of sodium citrate, sodum molybdate , zinc sulphate and tin sulpate and the study of electrochemical properties of citrate complexes presented in examinated solutions by cyclic voltammetry with rotating disc electrode.
It is really interesting topic, but many have to be done to understand all processes occurring in the investigated systems and draw unequivocal conclusions.

My Research:

- Samples preparation of AA1050 alloy to study the microstructure - grinding, diamond polishing pastes and electrolytic etching with reagent A2.
- Obtaining orientation maps of the samples of aluminum alloy in the initial state (after rolling, but before ECAP) with scanning electron microscopy. The study was conducted in cross-sections: RD-ND, ND-TD.

My participation in conferences:

- Workshop ‘Advanced Electron Microscopy Methods Applied to Investigations of Nanomaterials’ in 6-7.10.2011, organized by Warsaw University of Technology and Hitachi High-Technologies,
- ‘Conference on Energy and Future Information Technology and Opening of the International Center of Electron Microscopy for Materials Science’ in 13.10.2011, organized by AGH University of Science and Technology.

My participation in PAS and others seminars:

- Dr Eng. A. Tarasek: ‘Crystallographic aspects of the formation of shear bands in a strongly anisotropic structure of the alloy AA1050’,
- Prof. E. Zschech: ‘Energy-efficient microelectronics - The contribution of materials science and engineering’,
- MSc. M. Trybula pt: ‘Using the free volume model for the description of liquid binary al’,
- Dr O. Öttinger: ‘Carbon is Future - Some Industrial Perspectives and Challenges’.

This month, due to failure of the microscope, I continued reading literature. Additionally, a scientific cooperation between IMIM and the Foundry Research Institute was established. We are going to conduct some joint experiments. As a part of the project, a first series of samples was recieved from FRI. They were electropolished and, after the microscope was repaired, some EBSD and EDS maps were collected. Now they were sent back to FRI to conduct some further experiments there.

In October was done:
Oral presentation of master thesis results. The aim of the thesis was to investigate the changes in bond length and order, depending on molecule size and bond location in the chains of polyyne and cumulene. Using the ETS-NOCV method of Mitoraj , bonds in the centre of polyyne and cumulene chains were qualitatively and quantitatively described. Another subject of investigation was influence of change in the length of central bond in the shortest polyyne and cumulene chains on the change of bond orders. DFT/BP calculations carried out in this work allowed to find the length of cumulene chain for which the alternation of bonds reappears. The reappearance of bond alteration is clear for molecules counting more than 104 carbon atoms, which is much more than for similar calculations carried out with SCC-DFTB or DFT/B3LYP methods. Such a result shows a significant quantitative difference between various calculation methods. In spite of these quantitative differences, the results obtained in this work were qualitatively consistent with the results obtained with other methods, e.g. SCC-DFTB, DFT/B3LYP . A significant part of this thesis was the application of ETS-NOCV methodology to obtain quantitative information about the participation of σ and π components in the investigated chemical bonds; this kind of information was inaccessible by other methods of charge and bond order analysis.
Doctoral thesis concerned the description of solution model based on the free volume theory [Lupis,1956], Shimoji [Shimoji,1957]. Form initial theoretical studies come from necessity to define a new factor beta and the configuration entropy can be also developed. Comparing of both ideas, namely Tanaka and PhD student, was shown evidently clear good path of taking measures to extension of applied model in case of simulation the excess thermodynamic functions (Gibbs energy and entropy). Unfortunately, each model has some constraint, which are limited to using for every metallic solutions.

I made the analysis phase AZ31 magnesium alloy samples with 1.5 micrometer layer of Cr and 1.6 micrometer CrAlN layer. Samples were examined using the technique of grazing incidence diffraction angles for fixed beam radius: 3, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 and 15 degrees to the sample surface. In addition, for comparison, were examined in a model of magnesium aluminum and zinc - AZ31. Method of measuring grazing incidence diffraction is a technique that allows the examination of very thin films and coatings that cover some of the interest eg for corrosion protection and improve the quality of the surface.