Corrosion is a ubiquitous and costly problem for a variety of industries. Understanding and reducing the cost of corrosion remain primary interests for corrosion professionals and relevant asset owners. The present study summarises the findings that arose from the landmark “Study of Corrosion Status and Control Strategies in China”, a key consulting project of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2015, which sought to determine the national cost of corrosion and costs associated with representative industries in China. The study estimated that the cost of corrosion in China was approximately 2127.8 billion RMB (~ 310 billion USD), representing about 3.34% of the gross domestic product. The transportation and electronics industries were the two that generated the highest costs among all those surveyed. Based on the survey results, corrosion is a major and significant issue, with several key general strategies to reduce the cost of corrosion also outlined.

Most studies on the corrosion inhibition performance of organic molecules and (nano)materials were conducted within “carbon steel/1.0 M HCl” solution system using similar experimental and theoretical methods. As such, the numerous research findings in this system are sufficient to conduct comparative studies to select the best-suited inhibitor type that generally refers to a type of inhibitor with low concentration/high inhibition efficiency, nontoxic properties, and a simple and cost-economic synthesis process. Before data collection, to help readers have a clear understanding of some crucial elements for the evaluation of corrosion inhibition performance, we introduced the mainstay of corrosion inhibitors studies involved, including the corrosion and inhibition mechanism of carbon steel/HCl solution systems, evaluation methods of corrosion inhibition efficiency, adsorption isotherm models, adsorption thermodynamic parameters QC calculations, MD/MC simulations, and the main characterization techniques used. In the classification and statistical analysis section, organic compounds or (nano)materials as corrosion inhibitors were classified into six types according to their molecular structural characteristics, molecular size, and compound source, including drug molecules, ionic liquids, surfactants, plant extracts, polymers, and polymeric nanoparticles. We outlined the important conclusions obtained from recent literature and listed the evaluation methods, characterization techniques, and contrastable experimental data of these types of inhibitors when used for carbon steel corrosion in 1.0 M HCl solution. Finally, statistical analysis was only performed based on these data from carbon steel/1.0 M HCl solution system, from which some conclusions can contribute to reducing the workload of the acquisition of useful information and provide some reference directions for the development of new corrosion inhibitors.