Investigation on the storage of benzotriazole corrosion inhibitor in TiO2 nanotube

Thi Dieu Hang Nguyen, Thanh Tiep Nong, Van Quang Nguyen, The Quyen Nguyen and Quang Trung Le

Abstract

The present paper describes different methods for storing the benzotriazole (BTA) corrosion inhibitor in the titanium dioxide nanotubes (TNT) as nanocontainers. Three methods were used, including the vacuum impregnation at ambient temperature, the vacuum impregnation at cooling temperature (3 °C) and the rotary vacuum evaporation. TNT, BTA and BTA/TNT products were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. TiO₂ nanotube powder was synthesized by hydrothermal treatment from the inexpensive spherical commercial TiO₂ precursor. The results obtained from SEM, TEM images and BET values showed the successful synthesis of TNT with a homogeneous morphology of nano size tubes and a large specific surface (106 m² g^-1). The existence of BTA in TNT was demonstrated. The BTA/TNT obtained via the rotary vacuum evaporation contained a very significant amount of BTA (66.6 weight %) but BTA existed mostly outside the nanotubes. Two processes of vacuum impregnation at ambient temperature and vacuum impregnation at cooling temperature revealed that there was about 8 weight % BTA stored in BTA/TNT product and BTA was present mostly inside the nanotubes