Effect of Ethanolamines on Corrosion Inhibition of Ductile Cast Iron in Nitrite Containing Solutions

In this work, synergistic corrosion inhibition effect of nitrite and 3 kinds of ethanolamines on ductile cast iron using chemical and electrochemical methods was evaluated. This work attempts to clarify the synergistic effect of nitrite and ethanolamines. The effects of single addition of TEA, DEA, and MEA, and mixed addition of nitrite plus TEA, DEA or MEA on the corrosion inhibition of ductile cast iron in a tap water were evaluated. A huge amount of single addition of ethanolamine was needed. However, the synergistic effect by mixed addition was observed regardless of the combination of nitrite and triethanolamines, but their effects increased in a series of MEA + nitrite > DEA + nitrite > TEA + nitrite. This tendency of synergistic effect was attributed to the film properties and polar effect; TEA addition couldn't form the film showing high film resistance and semiconductive properties, but DEA or MEA could build the film having relatively high film resistance and n-type semiconductive properties. Moreover, it can be explained that this behaviour was closely related to electron attractive group within the ethanolamines, and thus corrosion inhibition power depends upon the number of the electron attractive group of MEA, DEA, and TEA.