An overview of expired drugs as novel corrosion inhibitors for metals and alloys

Dheeraj Singh Chauhan¹, A.A. Sorour², M.A. Quraishi*^1
1Dept. of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005, India
²Mechanical Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, P.O. Box 1104, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia

A B S T R A C T
The use of drugs as corrosion inhibitors for metals and alloys has emerged as an attractive replacement strategy to the otherwise toxic corrosion inhibitors. However, a major drawback is the financial constraints imposed on the method due to the high cost of pharmaceutical compounds. In the recent years, the use of outdated or expired medicines as corrosion inhibitors in a variety of aggressive media has provided an attractive alternative. In addition, this method addresses the issue of environmental contamination by the disposal of unused or expired drugs and also the costly degradation procedures. Although this area is still in the stage of early development, this review covers most of the contributions on the expired drugs as corrosion inhibitors as well as addresses some of the key parameters critical for evaluation of the corrosion inhibition efficacy of expired drugs in comparison to that of fresh drugs.
Keywords: Expired drugs, Corrosion inhibition, Electrochemical measurements, Density functional theory