Green polymeric corrosion inhibitors: Design, synthesis, and characterization

Biopolymers are widely acknowledged as effective corrosion inhibitors. These include naturally occurring polysaccharides and polypeptides that are biodegradable and show a wide range of pharmaceutical and biological activities. The literature well documented that the biopolymers exhibit relatively low inhibition efficiency (IE) at the higher concentration when used alone. Therefore, there is a need to improve the inhibition performance by chemical modification. The chemical modification can be performed by functionalization of the biopolymer backbone via suitable reaction schemes. The experimental and computational techniques describe the influence of the molecular structure on corrosion inhibition performance. This review describes the importance of the chemical modification of the biopolymers to produce effective corrosion inhibitors. The significance of biopolymers as corrosion inhibitors, the importance of chemical modification, computational studies on biopolymers, and the mechanism of adsorption and inhibition by biopolymers are described herein.