Feasibility of Azadirachta indica as a Green Inhibitor for Corrosion: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

One of the principal problems faced by industries of all sorts of industries is corrosion. Several researchers have constantly been working and presenting solutions; though the methods were proved to be efficient in reducing corrosion, these are found to have adverse effects on humans. Owing to these reasons, there is an urgent need to search for green inhibitors. The present work investigates corrosion rates of six metals in different mediums like sodium chloride, sodium carbonate and sodium sulphate solutions with varying concentrations to determine the most hostile environment. Weight loss technique was adopted in which selected metal strips were immersed entirely in non-flowing media of the above-said solutions for a total exposure duration of 56 days. The most belligerent medium was observed to be 0.5M NaCl followed by 0.5M sodium sulphate, while sodium carbonate was the least with a concentration of 1.0M. In the second stage of the study, a green inhibitor (A.indica) was added to the mediums of the first stage to assess the corrosion inhibition property. The analytical measures adopted for this part of the study were gravimetric and spectrophotometric methods. Greater inhibitor efficacy attributed to the least rate of corrosion was presented at a concentration of 15ml by the inhibitor. Further, the inhibition was proportional to the increasing concentration of the inhibitor. The present study concludes that extract from neem leaves can act as an effective corrosion inhibitor.