Imidazolines have been used in the area of corrosion inhibition since at least the mid 1940’s when it was shown that long chain organic compounds with polar functional groups had corrosion inhibition properties when applied to oil-field environments. Many fundamental studies involving imidazoline-type compounds have been conducted and reported but although many acknowledge that conventional imidazoline contains multiple species, i.e., imidazoline, amide precursor etc., none have endeavoured to separate/isolate the various components. Therefore, the extent to which each of the components in an imidazoline mixture contributes to observed properties, i.e., corrosion inhibition
performance, toxicity, biodegradation and bioaccumulation are not quantitatively known. This paper reports the synthesis, separation/isolation and performance characteristics of various
imidazoline species synthesised from oleic acid (OA) and diethylenetriamine (DETA). Also reported, are initial investigations into the inhibitory performance characteristics of each of these isolated species.