Two scientists from the Multidisciplinary Research Centre of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University (UKSW) in Warsaw were among the winners of the 7th Sonatina competition organised by the National Science Centre. Their projects in the physical sciences received a total of more than PLN 1.5 million in funding.

Dr Eng. Donata Kuczyńska-Zemła will carry out the project ‘On the influence of laser processing on the high-temperature oxidation of titanium alloys using nitrogen action in the near-surface zone’, subsidised with PLN 778 736.

As the researcher explains, titanium and its alloys are a promising alternative to currently used materials in high-temperature applications such as aircraft engines, car engines and gas turbines.

The second project, ‘Investigating the effect of nitrogen addition on the martensitic transformation and superelasticity of biomedical shape memory alloys based on Ti-Nb and Ti-Zr’ by Dr Karol Marek Golasiński, received funding of PLN 809 051.

‘The project concerns a comprehensive and multiscale study of the role of nitrogen addition in biomedical, nickel-free shape memory alloys based on titanium alloys, used primarily for the manufacture of implants’, explains Dr Golasiński.