4-phenyl-decahydro-1H-1,5-benzodiazepin-2-one as novel and effective corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel in 1 M HCl solution: A combined experimental and empirical studies

The heterocyclic system, namely 4-phenyl-decahydro-1H-1,5-benzodiazepin-2-one (POBZ) was inspected as a corrosion inhibitor of carbon steel (CS) in a 1 M HCl medium through electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), potentiodynamic polarization measurements (PDP), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The experimental data indicate that the inhibiting action augments with augmenting POBZ amount and reduces with augmenting temperature. The inhibiting action efficiency of 90.98% is obtained with 0.001 M at 303 K. The potentiodynamic polarization (PDP) results mentioned that the POBZ is of mixed type. The adsorption of POBZ on the CS followed Langmuir isotherm. SEM exams affirmed that the steel surface is smooth in presence of POBZ. In light of the calculations of density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics simulation, the mechanism of POBZ inhibitory activity was addressed. [Display omitted] •POBZ show excellent corrosion inhibition performance for carbon steel.•Surface morphology of carbon steel samples were examined by SEM.•The Langmuir adsorption isotherm governs the adsorption of POBZ.•DFT and molecular dynamics simulations backed up the experimental findings.