Analysis of the protection of copper corrosion by using amino acid inhibitors.

Since the human body is one of the highly aggressive environments, the materials utilized for an implant should have high resistance to degradation and corrosion. One of the commonly used biomaterials in medicine is copper (Cu). The Cu corrosion can result in the release of ions in the body with high toxicity, thereby causing inflammatory diseases. Based on the literature, as biomolecules, amino acids act as a corrosion inhibitor in aggressive solutions. The current work aims at scrutinizing the inhibition impact of L-arginine (L-Arg) and L-Valine (L-Val), which have been rarely investigated, upon the corrosion process of Cu. We undertook density functional theory computations to scrutinize the inhibitory impact of L-Arg and L-Val as well as their conformers upon Cu corrosion. Also, we scrutinized the computed parameters according to the back donation of electrons between Cu and the inhibitors, transported electron fraction, energy gap, softness, hardness, E, and E. According to the theoretical indices of L-Arg, it prefers adsorption. We examined the inhibitory efficiency of L-Arg against corrosion and found that it is a promising inhibitor.