Corrosion inhibition of steel in crude oil storage tanks

The corrosion behavior of steel in water from certain oil fields with various organic inhibitors was studied by applying potentiodynamic technique at pH 5.9. The inhibitors which were used include 2‐methylbenzimidazole (I), 2‐mercaptobenzimidazole (II), 2‐mercapto‐5‐methylbenzimidazole (III), and 2‐mercaptothiazole (IV). The inhibiting efficiency of the different additives was evaluated from their anodic and cathodic polarization curves at different temperatures. A comparative study of curve fitting procedures using the kinetic thermodynamic model and those utilizing well‐known adsorption isotherms was undertaken. Three types of isotherms were used, Langmuir, Frumkin and Flory‐Huggins isotherm. The results show that the kinetic‐thermodynamic model and Flory‐Huggins isotherms are more suitable to fit the data for the four inhibitors, at all applied temperatures. From the values of binding constants, K, the order of inhibitor efficiency is: III > IV > II > I and thus 2‐mercapto‐5‐methylbenzimidazole was the most effective inhibitor. The thermodynamic parameters obtained for all the compounds used showed low values of H_ads, which indicates that the action of these inhibitors is physically adsorptive in nature.