Effects of Inhibitors on Corrosion Resistance of Steel in CaCl 2 Solution Based on Response Surface Analysis

Effects of corrosion inhibitors (i.e., sodium nitrite, sodium hexametaphosphate, trimethylamine (TEA), sugar, and urea) on the corrosion resistance of carbon steel in CaCl2 solution were investigated. The test solution was designed with response surface methodology of design of experiments (DOE) in the range of 0 ~ 50 ppm for NaNO2, 0 ~ 200 ppm for (NaPO3)6, 0 ~ 2000 ppm for TEA, 0 ~ 3000 ppm for sugar, 0 ~ 200 ppm for urea with 3 wt% CaCl2. The corrosion potential and the corrosion rate were measured with potentiodynamic polarization tests and analyzed statistically to find main effects of inhibitor concentrations and interactions between them. As a result, hexametaphosphate was the most effective compound in reducing the corrosion rate. Sugar also reduced the corrosion rate significantly possibly because it covered the surface effectively with a high molecular weight. The inhibiting action of sugar was found to be enhanced by adding trimethylamine into the solution. Nevertheless, trimethylamine did not appear to be effective in inhibiting corrosion by itself. However, urea and sodium nitrite showed almost no inhibition on corrosion resistance of steel.