Phytate as efficient and green corrosion inhibitor for NdFeB magnets in aqueous salt solution

Phytate had been investigated as a corrosion inhibitor for NdFeB magnets in an aqueous salt solution. Potentiodynamic polarisation, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy were employed for this investigation. The polarisation curves results revealed that phytate acted as a mixed type inhibitor. The inhibition efficiency was found to increase by maximum 96.5% through increasing the phytate concentration to 0.5 mM at 308C. The inhibition was proposed to result from the adsorption of phytate on NdFeB magnets, which was found to obey the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The inhibition mechanism was explored by the potential of zero charge (Epzc) measurement at the solution/metal interface.