Abstract
The present work describes the exfoliation of clay through crosslinking with 3-(acrylamidopropyl) trimethylammonium chloride–co-acrylamide (APTAC/AM) which made the polymer end-tethered on Na-MMT. However, the way in which APTAC/AM interacts with the surface of MMT has not yet been studied. APTAC/AM widened the gap between clay layers and facilitates comonomers penetrate into clay. The exfoliated structure of extracted nanocomposite was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray powder diffraction XRD, thermogravimetric analyses (TGA) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Results of FT-IR, TGA and XRD analyses showed that APTAC/AM interacted with clay, but to various extents. The inhibition effect of APTAC/AM-MMT on the corrosion of steel in 1.0 M HCl solution was studied by potentiodynamic polarization curves and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) methods. All electrochemical measurements indicate that APTAC/AM-MMT functioned as a good inhibitor in 1M hydrochloric solution and inhibition efficiency increased with APTAC/AM-MMT concentration. Polarization curves indicate that APTAC/AM-MMT acts as mixed-type inhibitor. EIS spectra exhibit one capacitive loop. The charge transfer resistance (Rct) increases with APTAC/AM-MMT concentration, while double layer capacitance (Cdl) decreases.