Effect of Ultrasound on the Performance of Salicornia Extract as an Eco-Friendly Corrosion Inhibitor

Given the urgent need for renewable, environmentally safe sources and the growing concern about the economic and environmental impacts of corrosion in light of continuous industrial progress, we aim in this research to study the effect of the extraction stage on Salicornia Extract (SE) performance as an economically and safely alternative source for inhibiting low-carbon steel corrosion in 3.5% NaCl under variant conditions. The effect of the sonication period on inhibition efficiency was investigated by preparing four extracts. The first, second, third, and fourth were prepared by exposing them to 20, 30, 40, and 50 minutes of ultrasonography, respectively. The study was carried out using weight loss, polarization, open circuit potential techniques for corrosion studies, and Fourier Transform InfraRed (FT-IR) spectroscopy to detect the functional groups in the obtained extracts. The results showed that there was a difference in the chemical composition of the four extracts and thus in their performance, as the inhibition efficiency increased with the sonication time up to 40 minutes, while it began to decrease after more exposure to the ultrasound. The results raised an important point, which is the possibility of using ultrasound as a new method to detect the active groups exactly responsible for the inhibition process in plant extracts. The third extract showed excellent ability for mild steel corrosion inhibition at different concentrations and temperatures. The inhibition efficiency increased with concentration and temperature and reached 90.11% at 7% v./v. and 328 K as a maximum value.