Corrosion behaviour of coconut rice and eggshell reinforced aluminium metal matrix composites in 0.4M H₂SO₄

Corrosion is a significant aspect considered during the manufacturing process. As newly developed metal composites have proven to perform exceptionally well in terms of weight-to-strength ratio and mechanical properties improvement, there is also a need to ascertain that the materials can withstand corrosion. This study will focus on the corrosion behaviour of coconut rice and eggshell-reinforced aluminium metal matrix composites (AMMC) in 0.4 M H₂SO₄. The study also carried out a performance evaluation of TiO₂ nanoparticles as an inhibitor to protect the advanced aluminium metal matrix composite in the acidic environment of H₂SO₄. This research employed X-ray fluorescence (XRF) to study the composition of the developed samples (samples C are Al 8112 alloy, D are 2.5%-coconut rice/2.5%-eggshell, and E are 5%-coconut rice/3%-eggshell). Weight loss analysis was also carried out to study the corrosion rate and the inhibitor efficiency. SEM and EDX were employed to study the surface morphology of the corroded samples in acidic environments. The results show that sample E, with a weight loss of 0.0703 and a corrosion rate of 0.2534 mm/hr at 120 hours, has the lowest weight loss and corrosion rate compared with samples D and C. The average inhibitor efficacy is 73.5%, which shows that TiO₂-nanoparticles protected the AMMC from corrosion attack.