Sol–gel auto-combustion synthesize and characterization of a novel anticorrosive cobalt ferrite nanoparticles dispersed in silica matrix

Abstract

This study aimed at studying the effect of an inorganic anticorrosive magnetic material on the corrosion protection properties of mild steel in 1 N HCl using electrochemical and weight loss method. Cobalt ferrite nanoparticles dispersed in silica matrix ( CoFe2O4–SiO2) were developed in order to overcome the disadvantages of widely organic corrosion inhibitors. Magnetic nanocomposite powders that could be easily recovered by applying an external magnetic field has been prepared using a sol–gel auto-combustion route in the presence of novel precursors without adding any surfactant. Magnetic CoFe2O4/ SiO2 samples that was synthesized in the presence of trimesic acid, indicated no impurity, ferromagnetic behavior, spherical shape with an average diameter of 30 nm and homogeneous scattered in the matrix. Nanocomposite samples characterized by FTIR, SEM, XRD, TGA and VSM techniques. Thermodynamic parameters calculated, temperature effect and adsorption mechanism was investigated as well. The results obtained from the polarization technique are in a good agreement with the values from the gravimetric measurements, this agreement among two independent techniques proves the validity of the results. Theoretical corrosion inhibition of optimized final structure was investigated and corroborated experimental results.