Chitosan and its derivatives as environmental benign corrosion inhibitors: Recent advancements

Recently, increasing ecological awareness and strict environmental regulations have forced corrosion scientists, researchers, and industrialists to design, synthesize, and use environmentally benign alternatives in place of traditional toxic corrosion inhibitors. Numerous alternatives such as plant extracts and chemical medicines have already developed and are being used. Carbohydrates, amino acids, and their derivatives are extensively used as corrosion inhibitors because of their environmentally benign nature as well as the high functionalities that afford them high anticorrosion ability. The high surface functionality also provides them reasonably high solubility in polar electrolytes despite their macromolecular and polymeric nature. Chitosan and its derivatives represent a special class of carbohydrate derivatives that have been extensively used as metallic corrosion inhibitors. This chapter describes the recent advancement in the field of implementation of chitosan and its derivatives as metallic corrosion inhibitors. The chapter also demonstrates the adsorption behavior chitosan and its derivatives on metallic surface using computational modelings. Chitosan and its derivatives interact with the metallic surface using donor-acceptor interactions and inhibit metallic corrosion by forming the surface film.