Dr. Eva García-Lecina, Scientific and Technological coordinator of CIDETEC Surface Engineering, took part in the Automotive Surfaces Conference that was hold in Berlin from 30 November to 1 December 2017

The conference, organized by Plastics News Europe, was focused on the newest automotive interior and electronics innovations. This event provided the latest trends on the materials, innovative technologies and manufacturing techniques on the automotive field.

Smart surfaces, applied over interior and exterior components, are being developed rapidly to reflect consumer needs such as functionality, style and feel. Coatings are one of the main technologies to achieve the desired surface properties creating an added value for the user. New market trends in smart surfaces were detected, including applications where the coatings respond to environmental changes.

Dr. Eva García-Lecina´s presentation entitled “The effect of copper cations in the corrosion mechanism of decorative Nickel-Chromium multilayered systems”, showed the use of localized and conventional electrochemical techniques in the study of the corrosion mechanisms of nickel-chromium decorative coatings used in the automotive sector. The work also dealt with topics like decorative multilayer nickel/chromium coatings, accelerated corrosion tests (CASS test) and copper effect in the corrosion mechanisms.