Aerva lanata flowers extract as green corrosion inhibitor of low-carbon steel in HCl solution: an in vitro study

Abstract

In this study, we present the performance as an inhibitor of plant extract of Aerva lanata flowers (ALF) used as an environmentally benign compound for protection of corrosion of low-carbon steel in 1.0 mol L−1 HCl solution. The investigation was accomplished using conventional mass loss, electrochemical measurements and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The investigation of weight loss demonstrated that the inhibition performance had been improved via raising the concentration of the inhibitor. The efficiency of inhibition has been found to exceed 88% at 600 ppm of the ALF formulation. Using anodic polarization curves, it was demonstrated that flower extract of Aerva lanata acted as a mixed-type inhibitor. The green inhibitor compounds covered the steel surface following Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The surface morphology analysis was conducted to validate the results.