Biosynthesis of Ag-nanoparticles from North Central Nigerian Propolis Extract as Highly Efficient Anticorrosion Additive of Carbon Steel in Acidic Medium

Metals in use begin to corrode as soon as they come in contact with a hostile environment. This drastically reduces the useful life of metallic materials, affecting home and industrial properties. In addition to the high cost of production, inorganic corrosion inhibitors are known to be harmful to the ecosystem, thus the need for low-cost, efficient, and environmentally friendly alternatives. Due to their high surface-to-volume ratio and capacity to create self-assembled films on metal surfaces, benign nanoparticles present a good alternative. In this study, North Central Nigerian propolis Extracts (NCNPE) were utilized to synthesize silver nanoparticles and were characterized spectroscopically. The North Central Nigerian propolis Extracts-Silver Nanoparticles composites (NCNPE -AgNPs) were then tested for corrosion-inhibitive potentials in HCl solution. The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) absorption bands were obtained at around 422 nm. The XRD results showed that the resultant crystalline NCNPE -AgNPs has FCC structure, with a mean nanoparticle size of 1.36128 ± 0.04962. The STEM image revealed several oval structures that were densely filled with AgNPs, which appeared as white spots, with patterns that appeared homogeneous. In the presence of 1000 ppm NCNPE -AgNPs, the results showed high inhibition efficiency of 86.49 and 96.44 % for EIS and gravimetric technique, respectively. Also, the thermodynamic and adsorption characteristics of NCNPE -AgNPs on CS in HCl solution were calculated. It was discovered that the NCNPE -AgNPs performed well as an inhibitor of CS corrosion in HCl.