In order to assemble effective protective coatings against corrosion, electrochemical techniques such as linear potentiometry and cyclic voltammetry were performed on a copper surface in 0.1 mol·L⁻¹ HCl solution containing 0.1% polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) in the absence and presence of silver nanoparticles (nAg/PVA). A recent paradigm was used to distinguish the features of the coatings, that is, a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) was implemented to automatically and hierarchically extract the discriminative characteristics from the information given by optical microscopy images. In our study, the material surface morphology, controlled by the CNN without the interference of the human factor, was successfully conducted to extract the similarities/differences between unprotected and protected surfaces in order to establish the PVA and nAg/PVA performance to retard copper corrosion. The CNN results were confirmed by the classical investigation of copper behavior in hydrochloric acid solution in the absence and presence of polyvinyl alcohol and silver nanoparticles. The electrochemical measurements showed that the corrosion current density (i_corr) decreased and polarization resistance (R_p) increased, with both PVA and nAg/PVA being effective inhibitors for copper corrosion in an acid environment, forming polymer protective coatings by adsorption on the metal surface. Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) certifies the formation of polymer coatings, revealing a specific morphology of the copper surface in the presence of PVA and nAg/PVA, very different from that of corroded copper in uninhibited solutions. Finally, the correlation of the CNN information with experimental data was reported.

Inhibitive properties of the antibacterial sulfa drug sulfathiazole—IUPAC name being 4-amino-N-(1,3-thiazol-2-yl) benzene sulfonamide—on the corrosion of carbon steel in 1.0 M HCl solution were investigated using weight loss measurements, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Sulfathiazole is a good adsorption inhibitor, and the inhibition efficiency increases with increasing concentration. Adsorption is spontaneous and is best described by Temkin isotherm. XPS analysis showed, at this stage, that the main product of corrosion is a nonstoichiometric Fe³⁺ oxide/oxyhydroxide consisting of a mixture of Fe₂O₃, α, and γ-FeO(OH) and/or Fe(OH)₃, where α, γ-FeO(OH) is the main phase.

The corrosion and behavior of carbon steel in 2 M HCl in the presence of N-(2-hydroxybenzilidene) thiosemicarbazide (HBTC) was investigated using weight loss and electrochemical studies. The morphology of carbon steel surface was investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Mössbauer spectrometry. The corrosion current was determined using Tafel polarization. The inhibition efficiency increased with HBTC concentration; the experimental results suggest that the presence of HBTC in the solution increases the surface coverage (θ); a decrease in the corrosion spot with the increase of the HBTC concentration indicates good adsorbability of HBTC on the metal surface. The adsorption of this compound on the metal surface is found to obey Langmuir's adsorption isotherm. Mössbauer spectroscopy showed at this stage the main product of corrosion is a non-stoichiometric amorphous Fe³⁺ oxyhydroxide, consisting of a mixture of α, β, and γ-FeOOH, where γ-FeOOH is the main phase.