Biopolymer sodium alginate based titania and magnetite nanocomposites as natural corrosion inhibitors for mild steel in acidic medium

Abstract

Green biopolymeric materials and its hybrid nanocomposites, i.e. sodium alginate grafted polymethylmethacrylate based titanium dioxide and iron oxide (SA-g-PMMA/TiO2 and SA-g-PMMA/Fe3O4) have been explored for the prevention of mild steel's corrosion in 15% HCl. It is reflected from the electrochemical impedance data that SA-g-PMMA/TiO2 exhibits maximum inhibition efficiency of 97.28% followed by SA-g-PMMA/Fe3O4 that gives 96.82% efficiency while the unmodified sodium alginate possess merely 84.74% efficiency. The declining trend of inhibition efficiency with rising temperature has been explained through gravimetric studies conducted at 303 K- 333 K. The thermodynamic activation and adsorption parameters revealed the mixed mode of adsorption of inhibitors over mild steel surface which follow Langmuir adsorption isotherm. It has been observed from tafel polarization studies that all studied inhibitors are mixed type in nature. The surface morphological inspection of the mild steel samples was done through FE-SEM and AFM, which revealed the formation of better protective adsorption layer over the exposed metallic surface by the nanocomposites in comparison to sodium alginate alone. In addition to this, the elemental composition of adsorbed film on inhibited mild steel specimens was obtained by XPS technique. Quantum parameters obtained through Density Functional Theory (DFT) further corroborate the experimental outcomes.