HYDROGEN PRODUCTION DURING THE ELECTROCHEMICAL TREATMENT OF AQUOUS FORMIC ACID SOLUTION USING AN ELECTROCHEMICAL REACTOR WITH SOLID POLYMER ELECTROLYTE (SPE)
ONDER, E., KOPARAL, A.S., BAKIR OGUTVEREN, U.*
Anadolu University, TURKIYE
(free)
In this study, the feasibility of production of hydrogen gas as well as the electrochemical treatment of formic acid has been investigated in an electrochemical reactor. Formic acid has been electrochemically oxidized to CO2 and H2O at the anode and hydrogen gas has been
produced by the reduction of hydrogen ions at the cathode.
KEYWORDS
Electrochemical treatment, Formic acid, Hydrogen production, Organic pollutant.
INTRODUCTION
Formic acid as known metanoic acid is a corrosive, colourless liquid with sharp odour. It has a simplest formula and lowest molecule weight of carboxylic acids. Formic acid as one of organic pollutants is generally produced from oxidation processes of various compounds and is a
reactive hazardous pollutant. This compound is oxidized hardly by the conventional methods (Gogate et al., 2003; Rajkumar and Palanivelu, 2004) and it has to be removed from the wastewater before to be discharged to receiving environments. In this study, the feasibility of hydrogen production by electrolysis of formic acid in an electrochemical reactor with SPE has been investigated. A Nafion 117 as SPE has been used in the electrochemical reactor (Choi et al. 2004). Parameters that can affect the performance of the process, such as current density and flow rate on the efficiency of hydrogen production and removal of formic acid have been examined.
