“…No methodological studies were performed in order to quantify the volume fraction of porosity; however, it was measured on the cross-sectional SEM images that GN and FBN resulted in deeper porous layers as compared to NC and PN, having values of 4.72 ± 0.27, 3.92 ± 0.26, 1.70 ± 0.05, and 1.63 ± 0.25 μm, respectively. XRD analysis of the untreated and treated surfaces were given in the previous study [22] where the untreated surface presented only α-Fe phase and treated samples presented ε-Fe 2-3 N and γ′-Fe 4 N that is in accordance with the literature where these compounds have been reported as the main constituents of the compound layer after nitriding processes [26,[29][30][31][32][33]. Besides, NC and FBN samples presented 3 and 4% of Fe 2 O 3 phase, respectively, that may be due to the residual air in the furnace during the process [22,26,34].…”