Effect of alkyl group position on adsorption behavior and corrosion inhibition of new naphthol based on 8-hydroxyquinoline: Electrochemical, surface, quantum calculations and dynamic simulations

•Q-1 and Q-2 act as effective inhibitors for MS acidic corrosion.•The adsorption of Q-1 and Q-2 followed the Langmuir isotherm model.•Adsorption on the surface is analyzed by AFM, SEM/EDAX and XRD techniques.•Theoretical data provide in-depth understanding of the experimental results. The present investigation focused on the corrosion inhibition of mild steel in 1.0 M HCl medium by new naphthol based on 8-hydroxyquinoline. These products were characterized by 1H-NMRand 13C NMR spectroscopy. The influence of concentration (C) and temperature (T) on the corrosion process of mild steel before and after addition of naphthol derivatives in corrosive solutions has been investigated through weight loss (WL), electrochemical measurements :electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization (PDP). PDP findings revealed that the used naphthol derivatives exhibit a mixed character. Inhibition efficiencies of Q-1 and Q-2 followed the order: 87.6% (Q-1)