In recent years, there has been a considerable development in surface treatments with lanthanide salts in order to replace highly toxic and carcinogenic chromate conversion coatings. Lanthanide elements have three principal advantages: (a) low toxicity, so their ingestion or inhalation is not considered harmful to health, (b) some of them are relatively abundant in nature and (c) they have been used successfully in surface modification of various metals and alloys, because of their tendency to form oxides or hydroxides over cathodic zones having a blocking effect.

The research line aims at developing cerium and lanthanum conversion coatings on aluminium based materials with potential use in the automotive industry.