Importance of Location for Addition of Surfactant Inhibitors in Corrosion Experiments

Use of organic surfactant corrosion inhibitors provides an economical and effective way for internal corrosion control of oil and gas production and transportation pipelines. Corrosion inhibition measurements using electrochemical techniques can be used to evaluate the efficacy of corrosion inhibitors based on steady state corrosion rates. The corrosion behavior with respect to time can further be utilized to quantify adsorption kinetics of inhibitor molecules on metal and can further be integrated in the development of corrosion prediction tools. However, corrosion rates measurements can be very sensitive to experimental methodology in the presence of corrosion inhibitors in the test solution, and repeatability is often difficult to achieve if a robust methodology is not followed meticulously. In this study, the importance of the location of inhibitor addition in lab-scale corrosion experimentation is discussed.