LAUSR

HCl pickling treatment is utilized to remove mill scales from mild steel (MS) surface at different temperatures up to 328 ± 2 K. In order to minimize the metal dissolution, newly multifunctional heterocycles based on 8-hydroxyquinoline namely 3-((8-hydroxyquinolin-5yl)-methyl)-2-phenylquinazolin-4(3H)-one (HQ-ZH), 3-((8-hydroxyquinliene-5-yl)-2-(4-nitrophenyl)-quinazolin-4(3H)-one (HQ-ZNO2), and 2-(2-hydroxyphenyl)-3-((8-hydroxyquinolin-5-yl)-methyl)-quinazolin-4(3H)-one (HQ-ZOH) have been synthesized and characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), 1H,13C NMR, and elemental analysis. Their anticorrosive performance for the mild steel in 1 M HCl medium has been determined by electrochemical and theoretical investigations. HQ-ZH, HQ-ZOH, and HQ-ZNO2 act as excellent inhibitors for MS in 1 M HCl. In addition, the surface of the mild steel has been analyzed by the UV-visible and SEM. The experimental results were correlated with theoretical studies.