To avoid the dissolution of steel in industrial pickling process, tetramine inhibitors are added to the pickling bath. This study is devoted to the understanding of the action mechanism of these inhibitors in hydrochloric and sulphuric baths on non-alloyed and alloyed steels. Pickling experiments and characterization with XPS, Raman and infrared spectroscopies have shown that inhibitors work only in acid media and leached out from the steel surfaces during the rinsing operation just after pickling. The effectiveness of inhibitors depends on the acid media and the temperature. Experimental data are consistent with a surface mechanism, i.e., the so-called "outer-sphere" adsorption. Crown Copyright (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.