Experimental studies on corrosion inhibition performance of acetylthiophene thiosemicarbazone for mild steel in HCl complemented with DFT investigation

Abstract

The University of Technology in Baghdad addresses problems related to the corrosion of metals. In the present investigation, a thiophene derivative, namely, 2-acetylthiophene thiosemicarbazone (2-AT), was synthesized and examined as a corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in a 1-M hydrochloric acid environment by using weight loss and scanning electron microscopic techniques. The inhibition efficiency of this inhibitor increases with increase in concentration, which offered an inhibition efficiency up to 96%. It was found that the inhibition efficiency decreases with long immersion time. The temperature effect on the inhibition performance was studied at various immersion times and revealed that the inhibition efficiency decreases with increasing temperature. The adsorption of the inhibitor on the surface of mild steel in the corrosive environment followed the Langmuir isotherm. The results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) reveal that the 2-AT molecules confirmed the presence of a protective layer on the surface of a mild steel sample. The density-functional theory as a quantum modeling technique which is used to study the electronic structure reveals that the obtained findings were found to be consistent with the experimental results.