Corrosion Resistance Improvement of Mild Steel

Abstract Corrosion’s devastating consequences have become a big issue all over the world. One of the corrosion damage aspects are related to decontamination solutions which are essential for rapid degradation of toxic agents. The decontamination solutions should be non-corrosive to avoid deterioration of steel container. Decontamination solutions comprising have high chlorinating activity so they have a corrosive effect on mild which are used in fabrication of storage tanks. In this case, using inhibitors is one of the most effective strategies to limit the rate of corrosion. This work describes the effect of different compounds; (zinc chromate, cinnamaldehyde, sodium tripolyphosphate, zinc ortho-phosphate, ammonium molybdate and thiourea) on the rate of corrosion of mild steel within dichloroisocyanuric acid decontamination solution. Meanwhile, these inhibitors should not affect active chlorine content which is responsible for the decontamination process. By using kelthoff and AquaChec® methods for measuring active chlorine, it was found that only zinc chromate passed the tests. For measuring electrochemical behaviour of mild steel in decontamination solutions, different techniques were used. Zinc chromate inhibition on mild steel in a 0.5% dichloroisocyanuric acid solution at different temperatures (298–313 K) were studied utilising electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, weight loss, and potentiodynamic polarisation. The results reveal that zinc chromate is an excellent mild steel corrosion inhibitor in dichloroisocyanuric acid, with an inhibition efficacy of 96% at a concentration of 0.005 M. Finally, surface morphology of mild was also investigated using SEM.