The paper describes the synthesis and evaluation of a series of environmentally friendly corrosion inhibitors. These products were designed especially to use in North Sea Oil fields and in other environmentally sensitive areas as green inhibitors of CO2
corrosion. More than thirty peptides, some with random amino acid sequences and some ordered copolymers were synthesized by solid phase peptide techniques using the Fmoc/tert-butyl protection strategy. In these syntheses the C-terminal residue was coupled to a resin and peptides were built out either by adding various Fmoc-Xxx-Yyy-Zzz units or by sequential addition of Fmoc-amio acids. The tri-peptide segments were synthesized in an aqueous solution by the successive addition of three N-hydroxysuccinimide esters of amino acids. In sequential addition, a single activated amino acid was added one at a time to the growing peptide on the solid support until the desired length was reached. The peptides were screened as corrosion inhibitors by exposure test. The
promising candidates were again screened by RCE tests for performance. A few biopolymers were selected which were then subjected to a battery of tests as water-soluble green chemicals. Finally, two biopolymers were selected with low toxicity, moderate corrosion protection, high biodegradability, and low bioaccumulation
Keywords: low toxicity, solid phase peptide synthesis, biopolymers, rotating cylinder electrode test, corrosion inhibitors, green chemistry