Carbon Dots as Corrosion Inhibitors: Precursor Effects, Adsorption Mechanisms and Sustainability – Review

Carbon Dots have proven to be a highly important class of material thanks to their minute sizes, which fall in the range of 1-10 nm. The ability of such materials to bind onto various substrates can be significantly improved with the use of oxygen-, nitrogen-, and carbon-containing functional groups. The term corrosion refers to a natural, spontaneous process that leads to the degradation of a particular substance. Although there exist several chemical agents, both organic and inorganic, that can act as efficient inhibitors, most of these are quite costly and pose serious safety issues. Some of the viable replacements to address corrosion concerns in metals are carbon dots and their variants. SEM, TEM, XRD, and others will mainly be relied upon to determine the properties of the formed carbon dots. There exists high correlation between the adsorption process by which carbon dots inhibit metal corrosion and the Langmuir adsorption isotherm model. This research will seek to cover the concept of corrosion, categorization of carbon dot-based corrosion inhibitors, and efficiency of their use on various metals, inhibition mechanisms, and metal surface analysis after protection using these carbon dots, among other aspects.