Synthesis and characterization of novel ionic liquids based on imidazolium for acid corrosion inhibition of aluminum: Experimental, spectral, and computational study

Three newly ionic liquids namely, 1-bnzyl-2-methyl-3-octyl-1H-imidazol-3-ium bromide, 1-bnzyl-3-decyl-2-methyl-1H-imidazol-3-ium bromide, and 1-bnzyl-3-dodecyl-2-methyl-1H-imidazol-3-ium bromide are synthesized and their chemical structures characterized via different spectra techniques (FT-IR, elemental analysis, and ¹H NMR). The corrosion inhibition of newly ionic liquids was evaluated on aluminum alloy in 1 M HCl at varied exposure temperatures (298–318 K) and varied concentrations via various experimental and theoretical methods for example mass loss, electrochemical, spectral, and computational calculations. The results illustrate that these types of ionic liquids inhibit corrosion of aluminum in acid solution with maximum inhibition efficiency was reached 83.2 % at 298 K. The inhibition efficiency increases with the addition of zinc sulfate which has a synergistic impact which was reached to 92.7%. Also, the concentration of ionic liquids and the kind of cation have an impact on the obtained results. The existence of these inhibitors in the acidic solution improves the charge transfer resistance and lessens the double-layer capacitance. The Langmuir adsorption isotherm governs the adsorption of these inhibitors' molecules on the aluminum alloy surface, and they behave as mixed-type inhibitors. The outputs reveal that the computational calculations match the experimental data rather well.