Experimental and In-Silico Computational Modeling of Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles Functionalized by Gelatin as an Eco-Friendly Anti-Corrosion Barrier on X60 Steel Alloys in Acidic Environments

An eco-friendly and a facile route successfully prepared novel cerium oxide nanoparticles functionalized by gelatin. The introduced CeO₂@gelatin was investigated in terms of FE-SEM, EDX, TEM, chemical mapping, FT-IR, and (TGA) thermal analyses. These characterization tools indicate the successful synthesis of a material having CeO₂ and gelatin as a composite material. The prepared composite CeO₂@gelatin was used as an environment-friendly coated film or X60 steel alloys in acidizing oil well medium. Moreover, the effect of CeO₂ percent on film composition was investigated. LPR corrosion rate, E_ocp-time, EIS, and PDP tools determined the corrosion protection capacity. The CeO₂@gelatin composite exhibited high protection capacity compared to pure gelatin; in particular, 5.0% CeO₂@gelatin coating film shows the highest protection capacity (98.2%), with long-term anticorrosive features. The % CeO₂@gelatin-coated films formed the protective adsorbed layer on the steel interface by developing a strong bond among nitrogen atoms in the CeO₂@gelatin film and the electrode interface. Surface morphology using FESEM measurements confirmed the high efficiency of the fabricated CeO₂@gelatin composite on the protection X60 steel alloys. DFT calculations and MC simulations were explored to study the relations between the protection action and the molecular construction of the coated systems, which were in good alignment with the empirical findings.