Screening and Evaluation of Two Dye Wastewaters as Additives for Carbon Steel Corrosion Inhibitors in Acidic Environments

[Image: see text] To reduce the cost of synthetic organic corrosion inhibitors in corrosion protection, dye wastewater exhibiting a synergistic effect is used with organic corrosion inhibitors to reduce the amount of high-cost molecules. The corrosion inhibition effects of the cationic dye methylene blue (MB) and the anionic dye methyl orange (MO) are tested. The test methods include electrochemical methods, weight-loss tests, and so on. MB exhibits better performance on the tested steel, with the anticorrosion efficiency reaching as high as 75.40%, which is chosen as an additive for organic corrosion inhibitors. After that, an organic inhibitor decamethylene bis-pyridinium dibromide (DBP) is selected for compounding with MB, and the corrosion inhibition effect under different ratios is tested. Similar effects of the compound inhibitor to the pristine sample are obtained at a ratio of MB/DBP = 6:4. In addition to experiments, theoretical calculations have also confirmed that the addition of dye molecules can inhibit corrosion. This research not only provides a way to reuse dye wastewater but also proposes measures to reduce the cost of organic corrosion inhibitors and, at the same time, provides new ideas for environmental protection and metal protection.