Evaluation of chitosan and carboxymethyl cellulose as ecofriendly corrosion inhibitors for steel

The study was aimed at establishing the possibility of using eco-friendly natural polymers to formulate corrosion inhibitors for sweet oil field environment. Against this background, the performance of two natural polymers; chitosan and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as single component corrosion inhibitors in comparison with a commercial inhibitor formulations, on API 5L X60 pipeline steel in CO₂ saturated 3.5% NaCl solution were investigated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization (PDP) techniques; complemented with surface morphology characterization of the corroded steel samples without and with inhibitors using scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results indicate that there is a remarkable difference in inhibition efficiency of each inhibitor on the API 5L X60 steel and the commercial inhibitor formulations. Inhibition efficiency increased with the increase of inhibitors’ concentrations. Immersion time was found to have a profound effect on the corrosion inhibition performance of all the inhibitors. Also the inhibition efficiency was found to decrease with the increase in temperature. Potentiodynamic polarization results reveal a mixed-type inhibition for all inhibitors. The adsorption of each inhibitor on the steel surface obeys Langmuir's isotherm.