A comprehensive assessment of carbon steel corrosion inhibition by 1,10-phenanthroline in the acidic environment: insights from experimental and computational studies.

1,10-Phenanthroline (PHN) is a nitrogen-containing heterocyclic organic compound that is widely used in a variety of applications, including chemosensors, biological studies, and pharmaceuticals, which promotes its use as an organic inhibitor to reduce corrosion of steel in acidic solution. In this regard, the inhibition ability of PHN was examined for carbon steel (C48) in a 1.0 M HCl environment by performing electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), potentiodynamic polarization (PDP), mass loss, and thermometric/kinetic.