Polyether copolymer as an environmentally friendly scale and corrosion inhibitor in seawater

- A novel green corrosion and scale inhibitor copolymer (AL15) was synthesized.
- AL15 has good scale inhibition performance at a relatively high temperature.
- AL15 exhibited a very good efficiency as corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in sea water.
- AL15 displayed tremendous potential for the application in seawater utilization.

A novel environmentally friendly type of corrosion and scale inhibitor acrylic acid-allylpolyethoxy carboxylate copolymer (AL15) was synthesized and characterized by FT-IR and 1H NMR spectroscopic techniques. The performance of the synthesized copolymer as corrosion inhibitor for mild steel corrosion was evaluated by potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques. The experimental results indicate that AL15 has good corrosion inhibition performance and the inhibition efficiency increased with the increase of AL15 concentration. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) indicated that the corrosion inhibition is due to the formation of a chemisorbed film on the mild steel. The anti-scale property of AL15 in seawater was studied by static tests and the scale deposits were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and SEM, respectively. The results indicated that the scale deposits surface morphology and size were changed significantly in the presence of AL15.