Experimental investigation on the corrosion inhibition of carbon steel by 5-(chloromethyl)-8-quinolinol hydrochloride in hydrochloric acid solution

5-(chloromethyl)-8-quinolinol hydrochloride (Cl-QH) was synthesized and characterized. Thus, its inhibition effect on XC38 steel corrosion in 1 M HCl medium was investigated using weight loss and electrochemical measurements. Polarization measurements indicated that, the studied compound acts as a mixed type inhibitor, the inhibition efficiency depends on its concentration and reaches 97% at 10− 3 M. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy showed that the Cl-QH acts by the formation of a protective film at the metallic surface. The adsorption of the studied compound followed the Langmuir isotherm. So, scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) confirms the performance of Cl-QH against corrosion. In addition, quantum chemical calculations using DFT at the B3LYP/6-31G* level of theory was further used to calculate and discussed some electronic properties of the studied molecule. The theoretical and experimental results are in good agreement.