The purines and its derivatives, such as, guanine, adenine, 2,6-diaminopurine, 6-thioguanine and 2,6-dithiopurine, were investigated as corrosion inhibitors for mild steel in 1 M HCl solution by weight loss measurements, electrochemical tests and quantum chemical calculations. The polarization curves of mild steel in the hydrochloric acid solutions of the purines showed that both cathodic and anodic processes of steel corrosion were suppressed. The Nyquist plots of impedance expressed mainly as a depressed capacitive loop with different compounds and concentrations. For all these purines, the inhibition efficiency increased by increasing the inhibitor concentration, and the inhibition efficiency orders are 2,6-dithiopurine > 6-thioguanine > 2,6-diaminopurine > adenine > guanine with the highest inhibiting efficiency of 88.0% for 10(-3) M 2,6-dithiopurine. The optimized structures of purines, the Mulliken charges, molecular orbital densities and relevant parameters were calculated by quantum chemical calculations. The quantum chemical calculation results inferred that the adsorption belong to physical adsorption, which might arise from the pi stacking between the pi electron of the purines and the metal surface. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.