This year’s was held in France at the Acropolis Convention Centre in Nice. The title was “Corrosion from the Nanoscale to the Plant” and it ran from 6th to 10th September.

As in the previous year the number of delegates topped the 800 mark. There were 25 sessions and work shops with 365 oral presentations and 204 posters. Up to 9 sessions took place simultaneously.

There was a good sized exhibition area, and near to this the posters were displayed and coffee and lunches were served. Within the conference were the usual EFC business activities with working party meetings and EFC meetings. Your correspondent attended the General Assembly (GA) on behalf of ICorr. There is a new President Philippe Marcus and there are plenty of interesting initiatives in relation to expanding the activities and the membership base of the EFC eg to include organisations outside Europe (including possibly NACE (at least NACE (Europe).

At the GA there were questions to the Russian delegate about the next EuroCorr which is to be held in September 2010 in Moscow. Apparently anyone wishing to attend will need a visa and this will entail a visit to a Russian embassy. But all embassies will be issued with instructions that presentation of an invitation to Eurocorr should guarantee a visa. Apart from the GA your correspondent also attended, as the UK delegate, the EFC Coatings Working party. (Note that since the last Eurocorr there is now an active Institute of Corrosion Coatings work group within CED (see my TT article for more details). It would make sense for this group to liaise closely with the EFC coatings working party and this applies to other CED workgroups as well).

Social events included a welcome reception on the Sunday evening, the opening of the exhibition on the Monday night and a poster session on the Tuesday. On the Wednesday evening there was a conference dinner held at Chez Simon a restaurant in the hills above the town. This was an enjoyable affair with an entertaining speech by the President where he encouraged all participants to go for swim in the sea after the dinner (This correspondent is quite glad he did not take this offer up as he found out subsequently that the beach at Nice shelves steeply and has some of the largest and sharpest pebbles and stones of any beach in the world- sea is “nice” though once you are “in”).

The exhibition area

The technical part of the conference opened on the Monday morning in the main lecture theatre with a welcome from Philippe Marcus. He then gave a short tribute to Erika Kalman. This was followed by the presentation of the Kurt Schwabe prize, awarded to a young (under 35) scientist, to Laure Martinelli.

Neil McMurray - Use of SKP

The European Corrosion Medal was given to Professor Vladimir Cihal from SVUOM Ltd, Prague. He gave a lecture on “The role of titanium in stainless steels”. during which data was showing the influence of carbon, chromium, nickel and molybdenum content on intergranular corrosion.

He also emphasised the usefulness of electrochemical polarisation (“Evans”) diagrams as indicators of the resistance to reactivation. This was followed by a plenary lecture by Professor Christofer Leygraf from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden entitled “Metal-environment reactions along two opposite directions”. This commenced by outlining the three experimental approaches to atmospheric corrosion viz. field exposures, lab exposures (with in-situ analysis) and exposures in ultra high vacuum conditions. The model system chosen as representative of atmospheric corrosion was zinc in carboxylic acids. He also emphasised that Corrosion and Run-Off are different processes that occur at different rates: the latter can lead to possible damag to the environment e.g. causing aquatic toxicity, the former loss of structural integrity. He also pointed out that nano-sized particulate matter is often a product of atmospheric corrosion and its effects on human physiology were largely unknown. This seems an interesting and important idea. Although there were no further plenary lectures at this conference many of the sessions included 40 minute keynote lectures. Apart from that there were the usual sessions run by EFC Working Parties and several joint sessions.

There were also a number of special workshops viz: Corrosion of archaeological and heritage artefacts: Sea water fouling control; coatings- biocides -treatments); Simulation, modelling and life prediction; recent advances in surface analytical techniques; Cathodic protection of steel in concrete by galvanic anodes; Bio-tribocorrosion and Corrosion issues in future high temperature nuclear systems. The papers from all these sessions appear on the ROM available from Dechema.

So overall this was, as Edinburgh had been, a very good conference. I am sure the organisers would hope to see as many of you as possible next year in the fascinating surroundings  of Moscow!

James Sullivan - Use of SVET

Members Area

Institute Technical Forum