Electrochemical deposition of dodecanoate on lead in view of an environmentally safe corrosion inhibition

Non-toxic linear sodium monocarboxylates can be successfully used as inhibitors for the corrosion of many metals. The adsorption of these molecules onto a metal is usually achieved by immersing the metal in the carboxylate solution for a few hours. This paper describes the strength of cyclic voltammetry in forming a sodium dodecanoate coating on a lead electrode. We show that this approach is much less time-consuming compared with the immersion method and enables one to control and to characterize the layer formed by following the potential and current during the process. Additional ATR-IR and X-ray diffraction spectroscopic analyses were performed to qualitatively characterize the newly formed coating.