Investigating Quinazolinone Derivatives as Corrosion Inhibitors for Mild Steel in 1.0 M HCl: Experimental Insights, DFT Calculations, and MC Simulations

This work reports on an inhibition and adsorption performance study of two quinazoline derivatives ((2-(2-chlorophenyl)-2,3-dihydroquinazolin-4(1H)-one) and (2-(2,4-dichlorophenyl)-2,3-dihydroquinazolin-4(1H)-one)) named ZB3 and ZB4, which were synthesized and examined using carbon nuclear magnetic resonance (13C NMR) and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy. The assessment of the corrosion prevention of these two compounds for MS in 1.0 M HCl was performed employing potentio-dynamic polarization (PDP) and (EIS) electronic impedance spectroscopy. The experiments performed showed that both derivatives operate well to prevent corrosion and their efficiencies exceed 85% at a concentration of 10-3. Moreover, it is discovered that the three chemicals' adsorption on the m-steel surface complies with Langmuir adsorption isotherm equation. The m-steel surface submerged in the corrosive solution was characterized by scanning electron spectroscopy (SEM) in conjunction with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), spectroscopy using atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-Ray diffraction, and FTIR analysis. The findings showed that the examined inhibitors are well adsorbed, generating a barrier layer for the m-steel's surface. DFT calculations and Monte Carlo (MC) simulation were used to directly correlate the electronic and adsorption properties, respectively, with the experimental corrosion inhibition efficiencies obtained for quinazoline and its 2 investigated derivatives.