International Journal of Chemistry and Material Science Vol. 3(2), pp. 033-042, May, 2015 ISSN 2327-5553 ©2015 Academe Research Journals

Full Length Research Paper

The potential of 1, 2, 3-Benzotriazole in inhibiting corrosion of aluminium in acid media

A. S. Fouda and Mahmoud N. El-Haddad*

Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Mansoura University, Mansoura-35516, Mansoura, Egypt.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: noaman_eg@yahoo.com. Tel: +2 01006423871; Fax: +2 0502202271.

Accepted 10 March, 2015

Abstract

The inhibition effect of 1, 2, 3-benzotriazole on the corrosion of aluminium in 0.5 M HCl solution was studied by potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) electrochemical frequency modulation (EFM) methods. The results show that 1, 2, 3-benzotriazole is a good inhibitor at different concentrations. Polarization curves reveal that inhibitor behaves as mixed-type inhibitor. EIS spectra indicated that the addition of inhibitor increases the charge-transfer resistance of the corrosion process, and hence the inhibition performance improved. Results obtained from EFM method are shown to be in agreement with potentiodynamic and EIS methods. The adsorption of 1, 2, 3-benzotriazole on aluminium surface obeys Frumkin adsorption isotherm. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis was performed to characterize the film formed on the surface of metal. The reactivity of inhibitor was performed through quantum chemical calculations based on DFT method to support the experimental data with the molecular structure of inhibitor.

Key words: Aluminium, polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), electrochemical frequency modulation (EFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), DFT calculations.