The book begins with coverage of materials used, pre-spray treatment, and the techniques used. It then leads into the physics and chemistry of spraying and discusses coatings build-up. Characterization methods and the properties of the applied coatings are presented, and the book concludes with a lengthy chapters on thermal spray applications covers such areas as the aeronautics and space, automobiles, ceramics, chemicals, civil engineering, decorative coatings, electronics, energy generation and transport, iron and steel, medicine, mining and the nuclear industries.

Professor Lech Pawlowski has been a Professor of Surface Engineering at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Lille (ENSCL) in France since 1999. His research focuses on thermal spraying and laser treatment of different materials, and currently he is working with suspension plasma sprayed ceramic coatings. He obtained his diploma from the Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland in 1974 by studying Electronic Technology. After completing his PhD on vacuum plasma sprayed copper and tantalum coatings in 1978, he obtained a postdoctoral position in France, and by 1985 had obtained a DSc through studying thermophysical properties of anilox and corona rollers.
He has held research appointments at Universities in Germany, Australia and Italy, and currently lectures on Surface Treatment, Technology of Powders Manufacturing, and Industrial Chemistry in France. He has lectured at the Conservatoire National of Arts et Métiers, and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et de Métiers in Paris. Professor Pawlowski is the author of two textbooks on thermal spraying and surface engineering, and the author or co-author of more than 60 journal papers as well as numerous contributions to scientific conferences. He works on the journal Surface and Coatings Technology and organizes meetings on thermal spraying at Lille.