Spectroscopic Investigations of Physicochemical Interactions on Mild Steel in an Acidic Medium by Environmentally Friendly Green Inhibitors

The influences of Polycarpaea corymbosa (PC) and Desmodium triflorum (DT) leaf extracts on the corrosion behavior of mild steel (MS) in 1.0 M HCl was investigated by weight loss, potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements. The effect of temperature on the corrosion behavior of MS in 1.0 M HCl with the addition of plant extracts was studied in the temperature range of 300 K-320 +/- A 1 K. The results revealed that PC and DT were excellent green inhibitors and the inhibition efficiencies obtained from weight loss and electrochemical experiments were in good agreement. Inhibition efficiencies up to 91.78 % for PC and 92.99 % for DT were obtained. Potentiodynamic polarization studies revealed that both the inhibitors behaved as mixed-type inhibitors. Adsorption behavior of these green inhibitors on the MS surface was found to obey the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The thermodynamic parameter values of free energy of adsorption (a dagger G (ads)) and enthalpy of adsorption (a dagger H (ads)) revealed that each inhibitor was adsorbed on the MS surface via both chemisorption and physisorption mechanisms. The adsorption mechanism of inhibition was supported by FT-IR, UV-Visible, WAXD and SEM-EDS.