The decorative coating industry has sought to improve the longevity of its product by offering lifetime guarantees with a range of attractive colours, combined with abrasion and corrosion resistance, to many of its electroplated low cost components such as high pressure die-cast zinc or brass due to increasing cost pressures arising from dwindling material resources and tighter environmental controls. The approach has been to employ environmentally friendly deposition coating technique, a physical vapour deposition (PVD) coating, to reactively deposit such hard, thin coatings, with the opportunity of significantly reducing toxic waste generation. This book provides an interesting insight into the mechanisms of corrosion protection relevant to PVD coatings, in order to better design and select such coatings for application in the harsher, longer term environments experienced by decorative coatings, as well proposes a potential strategy, advanced surface engineering, for improvement of the performance of such coatings.
