A method to prepare intermetallic composite coatings employing the cost-efficient electric arc spraying twin wires assistant with suitable heat treatment was developed. In this study, a Fe-Al composite coating was produced by spraying twin wires, i.e. a carbon steel wire as the anode and an aluminum wire as the cathode. The inter-deposited Fe-Al coating was transformed in-situ to Fe-Al intermetallic composite coating after a post annealing treatment. The effect of annealing treatment conditions on phase composition, microstructure and mechanical properties of the coating was investigated by using XRD, SEM, EDS and OM as well as microhardness tester. The results show that the desirable intermetallic phases such as Fe2Al5, FeAl and Fe3Al are obtained under the annealing condition. The main oxide in the coating is FeO which can partially transform to Fe3O4 up to the annealing condition. Crown Copyright (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.