The work presents the research results of the silumin coat structure applied on the carbidic alloy ductile iron with the metal matrix: pearlitic, bainitic and martensitic. The coats were made in the AlSi5 silumin bath at the temperature tk = 750±5°C. The holding time of cast iron element in the bath was τ = 180s. Irrespective of the kind of tested ductile iron the obtained coat consisted of three layers with a different phase composition. The first layer from the cast iron ground “g1`” is built from Fe4CSi carbide which contains selected alloy additives of the cast iron. On it the second layer “g1``” crystallizes. It consists of the AlFeSi inter-metallic phase which can appear in its pure form or contain a small quantity of the alloy additives of the cast iron. The last external part of the layer “g2” mainly consists of the hypo-eutectic phases of silumin. The AlFeSi inter-metallic phases in the form of free precipitations with a lamellar or faceted morphology can also appear there. These phases also can contain a small quantity of the alloy additives of the cast iron. More than that, in all the layers of the coat there are graphite precipitations. The phenomenon of graphite movement to the coat is caused by intensive dissolving of the cast iron element surface by the aluminum of the silumin bath.

Titania dioxide (TiO₂) layers were synthesized via the acid-catalysed sol-gel route using titania (IV) ethoxide, and then annealed at temperatures varying in the range of 150–700 °C. The research concerned the effect of annealing temperature on the structure of TiO₂ layers, their surface morphology, and their optical properties. Further, X-ray diffractometry, and Raman spectroscopy were used to determine the structure of TiO₂ layers. Scanning electron and atomic force microscopy were used to study the surface morphology of TiO₂ layers. Transmittance, reflectance, absorption edge, and optical homogeneity were investigated by UV-VIS spectrophotometry, while the refractive index and thicknesses of TiO₂ layers were measured using a monochromatic ellipsometer. Chromatic dispersion characteristics of the complex refractive index were determined using spectroscopic ellipsometry. Structural studies have shown that the TiO₂ layers annealed at temperatures up to 300 °C are amorphous, while those annealed at temperatures exceeding 300 °C are polycrystalline containing only anatase nanocrystals with sizes increasing from 6 to 20 nm with the increase of the annealing temperature. Investigations on the surface morphology of TiO₂ layers have shown that the surface roughness increases with the increase in annealing temperature. Spectrophotometric investigations have shown that TiO₂ layers are homogeneous and the width of the indirect optical band gap varies with annealing temperature from 3.53 eV to 3.73 eV.

The paper describes modification to Fm3–m (space group no. 225) lattice of aluminium based α-solid solution observed in Zn-Al alloys required to properly correlate quantitative data from X-ray diffraction analysis with results obtained from quantitative scanning electron microscopy image analysis and those predicted from Zn-Al binary phase diagram. Results suggests that 14 at.% of Zn as a solute atom should be introduced in crystal lattice of aluminium to obtain correct estimation of phase quantities determined by quantitative X-ray diffraction analysis. It was shown that this modification holds for Cu mould cast as well as annealed and water-cooled samples of Zn-3wt.%. Al and Zn-5wt.% Al.