Abstract A review on inhibitor performance in neutral aqueous solutions of sodium salts of mono and dicarboxylic acids as corrosion inhibitors for mild steel, under static conditions and room temperature, is presented. Electrochemical techniques are nowadays used to study the deaeration effect on passivity for several inhibitors. Recent results showed that oxygen is essential to develop the inhibitive characteristics of several compounds. For example, sebacate and octanoate require significant oxygen levels, whereas 2-ethyl hexanoate and decanoate maintain passivity even at very low oxygen levels. It has been also reported that some compounds require much lower critical current densities for passivation than others, such as in the case of decanoate compared with octanoate. The aggressive anions (e.g. Cl-) also affect inhibitor effectiveness, such as in the case of sebacate inhibitors where their tolerance for Cl- increases as inhibitor concentration increases.