Tailoring barrier layers design for haute couture through X-ray microanalysis: Insights and guidelines.

Barrier layers against intermetallic diffusion are a fundamental part on engineering electroplated coatings as they improve the lifetime of goods reducing wastes and improving the sustainability of the production chain. This study aims to set a cost-effective methodology to characterize barrier systems by evaluating the effectiveness with a recent approach based on XRF and EDS and characterize the kinetic of diffusion processes with X-ray diffractometry. Several high fashion barrier systems were tested highlighting that anticorrosion systems are not automatically suited as barrier layers for intermetallic diffusion, as opposed to industrial practice.

Chiral "doped" MOFs: an electrochemical and theoretical integrated study.

This work reports on the electrochemical behaviour of Fe and Zn based metal-organic framework (MOF) compounds, which are "doped" with chiral molecules, namely: cysteine and camphor sulfonic acid. Their electrochemical behaviour was thoroughly investigated via "solid-state" electrochemical measurements, exploiting an "" tailored experimental set-up: a paste obtained by carefully mixing the MOF with graphite powder is deposited on a glassy carbon (GC) surface. The latter serves as the working electrode (WE) in cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements.