Abstract: The inhibition effect of anionic surfactant of sodium oleate(SO) on the corrosion of cold rolled steel(CRS) in1.0mol/L HCl solution was investigated by weight loss and potentiodynamic polarization methods.The results show that sodium oleate is a good inhibitor in1.0mol/L HCl.Inhibition efficiency increases with increasing the inhibitor concentration.Polarization curves show that sodium oleate is a mixed-type inhibitor in hydrochloric acid.The adsorption of SOon CRSsurface obeys the amended Langmuir adsorption isotherm equation.The experimental data have been treated with adsorption theory and kinetic Arrhenius equation.Three adsorption thermodynamic parameters(adsorption free energy ΔG0,adsorption heat ΔH0,adsorption entropy ΔS0) and kinetic parameter of apparent activation energy Ea are also calculated.Based on the parameters,the inhibitive mechanism was discussed in detail.