Corrosion Mitigation of Gray Cast Iron and Aluminum in NaOH Using Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) Plant Extract

This research focused on the corrosion behavior of gray cast iron and aluminum in alkaline medium (0.5 M NaOH) with and without inhibitor (water hyacinth Eichhornia crassipes extract) of varying concentrations of 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25%. The corrosion rates of the metal samples were investigated using the weight loss and electrochemical methods alongside the formulation of a dispersant using readily available chemicals to develop a colloidal solution of the extract produced by hot water digestion of the water hyacinth plant leaves. The metallography tests of control samples as well as the most and least corroded samples were carried out using Optical Microscope (OM). The results revealed that the aluminum resulted in minimum corrosion rate of 0.000483 mg/mm2/yr with inhibitor efficiency of 98.93% obtained for sample A5 (25% extract from water hyacinth) while for the gray cast iron, a minimum corrosion rate of -4.4E-05 mg/mm2/yr with inhibitor efficiency of 566.6% obtained for sample C3 (15% extract from water hyacinth). The electrochemical result of aluminum showed increase in corrosion potential from -1.494 VAg/AgCl to -1.482 V Ag/AgCl and that of gray cast iron from -0.5436 VAg/AgCl to -0.2839 VAg/AgCl upon increase in inhibitor concentration. Therefore, the use of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes)extract reduced the corrosion or dissolution rate of gray cast iron and aluminum in (NaOH) sodium hydroxide medium.