Experimental and Theoretical Evaluation of Rutin as Eco-Friendly Corrosion Inhibitor for Aluminum 6063 Alloy in Acidic Medium

Abstract

The corrosion inhibition characteristics of rutin a natural flavonoid glycoside has been studied as an eco-friendly green inhibitor for corrosion control of aluminum alloy AA6063 in 0.5 M HCl medium at a temperature range of 30–60 °C by weight loss method, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization (PDP) techniques. The inhibition efficiency increased with the increase in concentration of the inhibitor and also with increase in temperature. The surface morphologies of the polished, corroded and inhibited surfaces were scanned using the scanning electron microscope images. The activation parameters like energy of activation, enthalpy of activation and entropy of activation were calculated and analyzed. Thermodynamic parameters for the adsorption of the inhibitor on the metal alloy surface were calculated and analyzed. The inhibitor acted as a mixed inhibitor. The mechanism of adsorption deduced from the variation of inhibition efficiency with temperature as well as kinetic and activation parameters suggests significant chemisorption of the inhibitor on the metal surface. The mechanism of inhibition can partly be attributed to the possible coordination of rutin to form stable aluminum–rutin complex. The maximum inhibition efficiency was found to be 95.1 and 94.45% by PDP and EIS studies, respectively, at 60 °C. Density functional theory calculations under the level B3LYP/6-311G(d) is utilized for the calculation of quantum chemical parameters.