Octanoate grafted graphene oxide as an effective inhibitor against oil well acidizing corrosion

Abstract The acidizing of oil wells is an essential stimulation method to improve oil construction. Acidizing is the pumping of acid in oil and gas well bore to generate channels in the rocks and let fuel reaching the well. Acidizing enhances oil production but at the same time exposes the well which is made of the carbon steel to the harsh and highly corrosive hot acid. The employment of corrosion inhibitors is the most practical method for protecting steel from corrosion. Here, we have synthesized an environmentally friendly inhibitor, octanoate functionalized graphene oxide (SO-GO) and evaluate its corrosion efficacy against X60 carbon steel in 15% HCl solutions to simulate the oil wells acidizing media by weight loss (at 25, 40, 60 and 80 °C) and electrochemical (at 25 °C) measurement experiments. The inhibitor showed an efficiency of above 80% at temperatures 25, 40, and 60 °C in the weight loss measurement. The synthesized inhibitor was characterized by FT-IR, FT-Raman, TEM, and NMR techniques. Contact angle measurements, FT-IR analysis, SEM, EDS and AFM results revealed evidence of the SO-GO molecules adsorption on the carbon steel surfaces to form a protective layer on steel.