This work was devoted to the investigations of the ability of saturated straight chain aliphatic monocarboxylates to inhibit corrosion of mild steel and zinc in aerated aqueous solutions. Performances of inhibitors were shown to be dependent on their chain length, their concentration and the immersion duration. Both crystallographic parameters and solubilities of iron and zinc carboxylates were determined. Then potential-pH diagrams of iron and zinc in water were built taking the presence of metallic soaps
into account. According to these diagrams, the passivation of metals was attributed to the growth of films containing metallic soaps. This model confirms that previously proposed for inhibition of copper and magnesium by the same carboxylates. Keywords : Steel, Zinc, inhibition, aqueous corrosion, sodium carboxylates, metallic carboxylates,
solubility, mechanism of inhibition, electrochemical methods, crystallographic studies.