Inhibition of Brass Corrosion in Acid Medium Using Thiazoles

Brass as an alloy composed mainly of copper is great industrial uses such as heat exchangers and similar other facility due to its good thermal properties. Due to the presence of the considerable ratio of zinc the alloy suffers from zinc dissolution or dezincification. Dezincification rate increases with the increase in the ratio of zinc in the alloy. In this study benzothiazole (BTH) and its substituent’s 2-methylbenzothiazole (MeBTH), 2-aminobenzothiazole (ABTH), 2-mercaptobenzothiazole (MBTH) and 2-phenylbenzothiazole (PhBTH) have been used as corrosion inhibitors for α-brass in stirred 0.1 M HClO4. The methods of investigation include weight loss, Tafel and linear polarizations and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The order of inhibition efficiency (% E) was calculated and the values obtained has indicated the sequence of inhibition efficiency was found to be BTH < MeBTH < ABTH < PhBTH < MBTH. The calculated values of thermodynamic parameters support this order. The inhibitors were found to suppress the corrosion rate by the formation of films which were identified by IR, SEM and EDAX techniques.