In may I continued spectrophotometric and voltamperometric studies of citrate bath with various concentrqtions of zinc sulpate ant sodium molybdate. I also lead the electrodeposition procesess in potentiostatic and coulostatic conditions on the steel and copper surfaces, from stable homogeneous and Zn(II)-Mo(VI) citrate baths, in the slightly acid range (pH about 5), with different concentration of metals and citrate ions.

From 14th to 25th May I participate in course “Electrocemical Impedance Spectroscopy and its applications” at Faculty of Chemistry of University of Warsaw.
Outline
1. AC response of Electrical Circuits, Laplace and Fourier transform
2. Impedance of Electrical Circuits and impedance graphs
3. Impedance measurements
4. Impedance of faradaic reactions in the presence of diffusion
5. Impedance of a faradaic reaction involving adsorption of reacting species
6. Dispersion of impedances on solid electrodes
7. Impedance of porous electrodes
8. Conditions for "good" impedances, stability, Kramers-Kronig Transforms
9. Modeling of experimental data
10. Selected applications
11. Exercises using computers

Course was given by prof. A. Lasia from Sherbrooke University (Canada).

This month I was wocused on investigations of the Crofer 22APU samples recieved from Foundry Research Institute. I was using EDS and WDS to measure chemical composition of surface oxide layers formed upon annealing in oxidative envitoment.

This month, I was preoccupied with preparations for a business trip - organizing travel, accommodation, etc. in order to participate in the Conference 'Oxford Instruments EBSD Symposium and Workshop 2012' held between 22-24 May 2012 in Wiesbaden-Schlangenbad.I was also working on preparation results of my research in the form of PowerPoint presentations (including the processing of photographs from SEM, presents results in tables and graphs, choice of resolution, etc.).

My participation in the Symposium was related to the presentation of research results of AA1050 aluminium alloy after 1 hour annealing in selected temperatures previously deformed by ECAP.
My results were delivered in a 15 minutes presentation titled: ‘Early stages of recrystallization in ultra fine-grained AA1050 aluminium alloy’. Please find attached 'related link'.

Attempts were made to embossing pattern on a copper disc, completed only a partial success. Due to the high melt of the strong deformation pattern is only partially extruded. However, it was discovered the cause of this difficulty - an outside company doing the matrix does not leave room for the flow of the material during deformation, which is why it has failed to do our prototype in a proper manner. In a further step we modify the template and will attempt embossing pattern. However, two discs prepared with outlines of designs. Since the earlier attempt to create a mirror of the first disk failed, perhaps due to the large curvature of the mirror, or due to a small increase in the electron density caused by insufficiently strong deformation, treated steel segment of curvature smaller ball for the second disc bending previously prepared by careful polishing .

My research in May:
The new alloy with slightly changed composition has been prepared: Mg-3Zn-0.2-Ca. I have developed this as cast alloy to check the possibility of finding the new ternary or binary phase. In all previous Mg-Zn-Ca phase only one ternary phase has been found: Mg6Ca2Zn3.The alloys has been cast under the protective argon atmosphere at 750 oC.