Evaluation of the Inhibition Effectiveness of Ampicillin in the Corrosion Steel in Acid Solution

Abstract

The increasing number of applications for carbon steel not only in industry and everyday life, but especially in medical applications requires knowledge on its susceptibility towards electrochemical corrosion in different environments, especially in acidic and neutral environments, including the human body. Moreover, the interest of the research community is still focused on finding suitable compounds, which provide good inhibition effectiveness in the specific corrosion environment, are affordable and are considered environmentally friendly. Ampicillin is a common β-lactam antibiotic of the penicillin family used to treat bacterial infections. In this work, we discuss the inhibition effectiveness of ampicillin as corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel in acidic solution at room temperature, using the weight loss method, at different concentrations of ampicillin. The inhibition effectiveness of ampicillin in 0.02 M HCl solution increased with increasing its concentration. Indeed, the highest inhibition effectiveness (90.7%) was achieved for the highest inhibitor concentration (1.0 wt.% ampicillin).