Influence of essential onion oil on tin and chromium dissolution from tinplate

During food and beverage packaging in tinplate cans the dissolution of tin and chromium into food content may occur. To protect metallic surface different corrosion inhibitors are recommended, nowadays particularly a new group of natural products is of interest. In this work the influence of essential onion oil (EOO) on metals dissolution (tin and chromium) from tinplate sheets before food canning was investigated. The analyses were performed by galvanostatic method and atomic absorption spectroscopy. The values of tin obtained for the internal surface of tinplate covered with EOO (7.31–9.76 g m−2) are lower than the values when dioctyl sebacate oil (DOS), as a protective tinplate surface layer for food caning, was used (9.24–11.03 g m−2). Obviously, the presence of EOO diminished more efficiently then DOS oil the dissolution of tin in electrolyte during galvanostatic analyses. The efficiency of EOO as corrosion inhibitor was even more pronounced in the case of chromium where the dissolution from 1.8–2.5 mg m−2 (DOS oil) was lowered to 1.0–1.3 mg m−2 (EOO). Correlation of results obtained with two different physico-chemical methods was satisfying.