Acetyl thiourea chitosan as an eco-friendly inhibitor for mild steel in sulphuric acid medium

Acetyl thiourea chitosan polymer (ATUCS) has been synthesized and evaluated as corrosion inhibitor. The electrochemical behavior of mild steel in naturally aerated 0.5 M H₂SO₄ acid containing different concentrations of ATUCS has been studied by potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements and surface examination via scanning electron microscope (SEM) technique. The results of EIS showed that the resistance (R_t) increases slightly with increasing immersion time indicating a slight decrease in corrosion rate of the steel with time. Also, the corrosion rate increases with either increasing temperature or decreasing the polymer concentration as observed by polarization technique. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements under open-circuit conditions confirmed well polarization results. ATUCS has shown very good inhibition efficiency (IE) in 0.5 M sulphuric acid solution reaches to 94.5% for 0.76 mM concentration. IE of this compound has been found to vary with the concentration of the polymer solution, immersion time and temperature.