Abstract:

The electrochemical behavior of low carbon steel (API 5L grade B) in 1 mol/L HCl solution with different concentrations of N,N′-bis(4-formylphenol)-trimethylenediamine Schiff base was studied by electrochemical techniques and density functional theory analysis. The inhibition efficiency was found to increase with increasing inhibitor concentration and decreased with increasing temperature. The high inhibition efficiency was attributed to the blocking of active sites by adsorption of inhibitor molecules on the steel surface. Thermodynamic parameters for the adsorption and activation processes were determined. Galvanostatic polarization data indicated that Schiff base act as a mixed-type inhibitor and the adsorption isotherm obeyed the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. Results obtained from quantum chemical studies show excellent correlations between the quantum chemical parameters and the experimental inhibition efficiencies using density functional theory at the B3LYP/6-31G(d,p) and B3LYP/3-21G basis set levels and ab initio calculations using HF/6-31G(d,p) and HF/3-21G methods.

Key words: Corrosion, Inhibitor, Impedance, Density functional theory, Atomic force microscopy