An investigation of rare earth chloride mixtures: combinatorial optimisation for AA2024-t3 corrosion inhibition

Rare earth (lanthanides) cations have demonstrated exceptional activity as cathodic corrosion inhibitors for aluminium alloys (AAs). While Ce is generally regarded as the most active, there have been reports of synergistic interactions between mixtures of rare earths, which show increased inhibitive activity. In this study a combinatorial experimental approach was used to evaluate the corrosion inhibition of four rare earth chlorides (Ce, La, Pr, Nd) singly and as mixtures. The estimation of corrosion currents using both potentiodynamic scans and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) provided the quantification of corrosion inhibition. The results were then modelled to determine the best predicted inhibition activity. A partial least squares (PLS) regression indicated that the optimal response directly correlated with the amount of Ce present. From the regression analysis, Ce alone demonstrated the best inhibition activity, with the optimum mixture predicted to contain 100% Ce. The addition of La, Pr or Nd, was not observed to improve the inhibition activity. This study represents one of the first applications of combinatorial design to a fundamental question of corrosion inhibition. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.