Behavior of Prunus persica as Green and Friendly Corrosion Inhibitor for Corrosion Protection

Abstract

Prunus persica (peach) is a delicious and juicy fruit, making a valuable and healthy food. P. persica is an interesting specie that have been studied in different ways, one of them is as green corrosion inhibitor to protect metals. From this specie, it has been studied as juice, seeds, pomace of fruit and leaves on alloy steels immersed in acids (HCl, H2SO4 and H3PO4) and salts (NaCl, Na2SO4). This chapter explains briefly global importance of corrosion, how corrosion occurs and how to protect metals with corrosion inhibitors, including examples about the studies of green corrosion inhibitors and the results of Prunus species. The phytochemicals mixture was extracted from different tissues of peach (leaves, fruits, seeds, peels, and pomace) through different methods. All these extracts were studied to protect steel alloys immersed in different aggressive environments (acids and salts) and showed good and high corrosion inhibitions using low quantities of phytoextract (0.5 g/L) as corrosion inhibitors reaching more than 87% of corrosion inhibition efficiencies. Leaves of P. persica containing flavonoids like fruits and is possible to use leaves or pomace to produce green corrosion inhibitors.