Designing a novel and eco-friendly organic/inorganic system for mild steel corrosion protection in saline environment: Electrochemical and surface studies

A novel hybrid inhibitive system based on employing aqueous extract of Allium jesdianum (AEAJ) and zinc cations was designed for corrosion monitoring of mild steel in saline solution. The interaction between AEAJ ingredients and zinc ions was inspected using FT-IR and UV–vis analyses. The performance and mechanism of inhibition were examined via electrochemical techniques. The composition and morphology of the deposited film over the plates were investigated utilizing ATR-FT-IR, SEM/EDS, AFM, and the Raman spectroscopy methods. Due to the unique structure, organic molecules of AEAJ can chelate with zinc ions, forming inhibitor-cation complexes on the surface of mild steel as a high-efficient inhibitive film. Electrochemical results exhibited that the protective film created by combination of 500 ppm AEAJ and 500 ppm Zn²⁺ ions had excellent inhibition efficiency (95.75 %) and significant total resistance (48375.4 Ω.cm²) after 48 h immersion of mild steel in saline solution, suppressing both anodic and cathodic reactions significantly. The superior synergistic inhibition impact of the utilized inhibitors, along with long-term protection capability (48 h) are regarded as a new horizon in the hybrid inhibitors as a feasible environmental replacement for the low-efficient inhibitors. The outcomes of surface investigations corroborated adsorption of applied organic/inorganic inhibitors on the samples.