Abstract
Corrosion inhibitors are widely used as an important tool for the prevention and remediation of different materials exposed to corrosive industrial processes. Corrosion inhibitors are usually added to acid pickling solutions to reduce the deterioration of metallic materials and particularly, corrosion due to hydrochloric acid. In this work, three bis-Schiff bases (BS2, BS4 and BS8) were synthesized and characterized using spectroscopic methods, and their anti-corrosive effects on AISI 1020 carbon steel in a hydrochloric acid solution were studied using gravimetric and electrochemical techniques and quantum chemical methods. The results showed that all substances act as potential corrosion inhibitors as BS8 exhibited the highest efficiency (98%) of all methods. The compounds adsorbed on the metal surface were as per the El-Awady adsorption isotherm. Morphological aspects of the metal were observed upon applying SEM, and the theoretical results acquired from the quantum chemical calculation for molecular properties and the Fe(110) surface adsorption proved to be compatible with the experimental results.