Research Progress of Organic Corrosion Inhibitors in Metal Corrosion Protection

Metal materials are vulnerable to corrosion in the process of production and service, which often leads to serious disasters, including the decline of the performance of metal components and the shortened service life, and even causes catastrophic accidents and ecological damage. Adding a certain amount of corrosion inhibitors (CIs) to the corrosive medium is a simple, efficient, and economical anti-corrosion method to slow down and restrain the corrosion of metal materials. Organic corrosion inhibitors (OCIs) are considered to have good application prospects and are widely used for surface anti-corrosion of metal materials, as they generally have advantages such as good metal adsorption, low oxidation resistance, good thermal and chemical stability, and green environmental protection. This paper systematically summarized some major OCIs, including alkyl chains, imidazoles, and pyridines, and their structural characteristics, as well as the action mechanism of OCIs. Moreover, this paper discusses some natural compounds used as environmentally friendly CIs and provides a prospect for the development trend of OCIs.