Investigation into the adsorption and inhibition properties of sodium octanoate against CO2 corrosion of C1018 carbon steel under static and hydrodynamic conditions

Sodium octanoate (Na-oct), a simple, naturally-abundant, cheap and low-toxic organic molecule has been investigated for its adsorption and inhibition properties against the CO2 corrosion of C1018 carbon steel in 3.5 % NaCl under static (0 rpm) and hydrodynamic conditions (1000 rpm). At open circuit potential (OCP) under static condition, a Langmuir-type adsorption of Na-oct modified the dielectric property of the steel-solution interface by lowering double layer capacitance and increasing resistance to charge transfer, based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) analysis. Under this condition, potentiodynamic polarization (PDP) analysis showed that Na-oct adsorbed more preferentially on anodic sites of steel surface and impacted ∼96 % inhibition efficiency. Hydrodynamic condition at 1000 rpm caused a Langmuir and Temkin adsorption mechanism and diminished the Na-oct efficiency to ∼86 %. FTIR characterization revealed that the inhibitor adsorption was enabled by its COO– functional group. Computational modeling, using DFT and MDS, confirmed the experimental findings.