A pharmaceutical product as corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel in acidic environments.

A pharmaceutical product, Trimethoprim (TMP), IUPAC name: 5-(3,4,5-trimethoxybenzyl)pyrimidine-2,4-diamine was investigated, as inhibitor to prevent carbon steel corrosion in acidic environments. The study was performed using weight loss and electrochemical measurements, in temperatures ranging between 25-55°C. The surface morphology before and after corrosion of carbon steel in 1.0 M HCl solution in the presence and absence of TMP was evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The inhibition efficiency (IE) increased with the increasing of the inhibitor concentration, reaching a maximum value of 92% at 25°C and 0.9 mM TMP, and decreased with increasing temperature. The inhibition of carbon steel corrosion by TMP can be attributed to the adsorption ability of inhibitor molecules onto the reactive sites of the metal surface. The adsorption is spontaneous and it is best described by the Langmuir isotherm. The apparent activation energy (E(a)) for the corrosion process in the absence and presence of TMP was evaluated from Arrhenius equation, to elucidate its inhibitive properties.