Review on Essential Oils and Their Corrosion-inhibiting Properties

Abstract

Natural and aromatic substances contained in plants which can be extracted by hydro-distillation or by cold extraction, more commonly known as essential oils are used today in several fields including cosmetic, perfumery, food processing, traditional medicine, agriculture etc. More recently, a strong use of these products extracted from plants as a corrosion inhibitor of metals and alloys in an acidic environment has been observed, given the number of works that have been published in recent decades. This review represents a general study on essential oils for a better understanding of these natural products, but also a non-exhaustive study of the published research works on the use of essential oils as a corrosion inhibitor of metals and alloys, in particular mild steels in acidic environments. Most of these studies have revealed great potentials of essential oils in inhibiting the corrosion of metals in aggressive environment, such as acidic environment. Thus, they have proposed alternatives to artificial metal corrosion inhibitor known to cause environmental pollution and public health issues. This review is a contribution to research efforts carried out by scientific community to find green corrosion inhibitors. It lays the basis for future research work aimed to investigate on the corrosion inhibition properties of essential oils extracted from Senegalese local plants.