Coco Monoethanolamide Surfactant as a Sustainable Corrosion Inhibitor for Mild Steel: Theoretical and Experimental Investigations

Recent studies indicate that surfactants are a relatively new and effective class of corrosion inhibitors that almost entirely meet the criteria for a chemical to be used as an aqueous phase corrosion inhibitor. They possess the ideal hydrophilicity to hydrophobicity ratio, which is crucial for effective interfacial interactions. In this study, a coconut-based non-ionic surfactant, namely, coco monoethanolamide (CMEA), was investigated for corrosion inhibition behaviour against mild steel (MS) in 1 M HCl employing the experimental and computational techniques. The surface morphology was studied employing the scanning electron microscope (SEM), atomic force microscope (AFM), and contact measurements. The critical micelle concentration (CMC) was evaluated to be 0.556 mM and the surface tension corresponding to the CMC was 65.28 mN/m. CMEA manifests the best inhibition efficiency (eta%) of 99.01% at 0.6163 mM (at 60 degrees C). CMEA performs as a mixed-type inhibitor and its adsorption at the MS/1 M HCl interface followed the Langmuir isotherm. The theoretical findings from density functional theory (DFT), Monte Carlo (MC), and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations accorded with the experimental findings. The MC simulation's assessment of CMEA's high adsorption energy (-185 Kcal/mol) proved that the CMEA efficiently and spontaneously adsorbs at the interface.

Automated summary

Recent studies have found that surfactants are effective corrosion inhibitors with high hydrophilicity to hydrophobicity ratio. In this study, a coconut-based non-ionic surfactant, known as coco monoethanolamide (CMEA), was investigated as a corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in hydrochloric acid. The experimental and computational techniques were used to study the surface morphology and the adsorption behavior. The results showed that CMEA exhibited excellent inhibition efficiency with adsorption following the Langmuir isotherm.