Tunable Anticorrosive Effects of Newly Synthesized Benzothiazole Azo Dyes by Potassium Iodide Synergism for Carbon Steel in 1 M HCl: Combined Experimental and Theoretical Studies

[Image: see text] Herein, we synthesized three novel benzothiazole azo dyes, including 4-chloro-2-(4-methyl-benzothiazol-2-ylazo)-phenol (CMBTAP), 1-(6-chloro-benzothiazol-2-ylazo)-naphthalen-2-ol (CBAN), and 2-(6-chloro-benzothiazol-2-ylazo)-4-methyl-phenol (CBAMP), and investigated their corrosion inhibition effect on carbon steel. The dyes were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, (1)H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), (13)C NMR, and mass spectroscopy. Weight loss, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and potentiodynamic polarization measurements were performed to investigate the corrosion inhibition effect of the dyes on carbon steel in a 1.0 M HCl solution. The synergistic effects of the dyes with potassium iodide (KI) were also investigated. The inhibition efficiency (IE%) was enhanced by increasing the dose of the dyes (1 × 10(–5) to 2 × 10(–4) M) and decreased as the temperature increased from 25 to 45 °C. The addition of KI to a 1.0 M HCl solution containing the dyes improved the performance and efficiency as iodide ions promoted the formation of inhibition films on the surface of carbon steel. The dyes are mixed-type inhibitors, according to Tafel polarization. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray analysis were used to evaluate the surface morphology of carbon steel sheets. Quantum theory calculations were utilized to evaluate the relationship between the dyes’ chemical structures and their inhibitory efficiency, which confirmed the experimental results. The calculations revealed that the dyes have low energy gap and Milliken and Fukui indices. Among all of the dyes, CMBTAP showed the highest adsorption energy. The corrosion IE was in the order CMBTAP > CBAMP > CBAN.