In this work, the corrosion inhibition property and the antibacterial activity of the aminotris(methylenephosphonic) acid (ATMP) have been studied. ATMP has been evaluated as a corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel in 1 M HCl solution using weight loss. potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques. According to the experimental results, the inhibition efficiency increased with increasing inhibitor concentration. Tafel polarization study showed that the ATMP acts as a mixed inhibitor. Data, obtained from EIS measurements, were analyzed to model the corrosion inhibition process through appropriate equivalent circuit models. Adsorption of ATMP on the carbon steel surface obeyed the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The calculated Delta G(ads) value showed that the corrosion inhibition of the carbon steel in 1 M HCl is mainly controlled by a physisorption process. In addition, the effect of immersion time on the corrosion of carbon steel was also studied in this work using ac impedance technique. The corrosion inhibition mechanism of ATMP was discussed. This inhibitor can be also used as biocide in aqueous environments. Our results showed that ATMP have an antibacterial effect against both Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria. The lowest MIC (0.2 mg l(-1)) was measured for Pseudomonas fluorescens while the highest MIC was measured for Escherichia coli (3.1 mg l(-1)). In addition, the results showed that the MIC of ATMP against Listeria innocua in a buffered medium (pH 6.5) was of ca. 4-fold higher than MIC measured in unbuffered medium. Thus, our findings showed that the antibacterial activity of ATMP is a result of a combined effect of the pH solution and the chemical nature of the used phosphonate molecule. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.