Chitosan as a green inhibitor for copper corrosion in acidic medium.

The behavior of copper in 0.5 M HCl acid containing different concentrations of chitosan has been studied by weight loss, potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and electrochemical frequency modulation (EFM) measurements. Potentiodynamic polarization measurements show that the chitosan acts essentially as a mixed-type inhibitor. EFM can be used as a rapid and non destructive technique for corrosion rate measurements without prior knowledge of Tafel constants. The results of EIS indicate that the value of CPEs tends to decrease and both charge transfer resistance and inhibition efficiency tend to increase by increasing the inhibitor concentration. The investigated inhibitor has shown good inhibition efficiency in 0.5 M HCl. The adsorption of inhibitor on the copper surface obeys Langmuir's isotherm. Metal surface characterization was performed using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Also, the relationship between quantum chemical calculations and experimental inhibition efficiency of the inhibitor was discussed.