Main Applications of Formic Acid and Research Progress in Fuel Cells

Formic acid, as a kind of hydrogen storage material, can release a large amount of hydrogen for use through appropriate reaction when needed. It is a stable intermediate for the wide use of hydrogen energy and safe transportation.

Formic acid can not only be widely used in industrial and chemical raw materials, but also be used as a new environmentally friendly road snow melting agent to prevent groundwater pollution.

Formic acid can also be used to make fuel cells based on formic acid. The fuel cells directly use formic acid as raw material to generate carbon dioxide and water through the reaction of formic acid with oxygen to generate electricity, which can drive some small portable devices, such as mobile phones and laptops.

The traditional fuel cell mainly consists of hydrogen fuel cell and methanol fuel cell. The limitation of hydrogen fuel cell lies in the high cost of its miniature hydrogen container, the low energy density of gaseous hydrogen and the potential danger of hydrogen transportation and use. Although methanol has high energy density, its electrocatalytic oxidation rate is much lower than that of hydrogen, and the toxicity of methanol hinders its widespread use. 。 Formic acid is liquid at room temperature, with little toxicity and higher electromotive force than hydrogen and methanol. Therefore, formic acid fuel cells have greater potential and application range than hydrogen and methanol fuel cells [9-10]. Direct Formic Acid Fuel Cell (DFAFC) is a new generation of mobile and portable power supply because of its simple fabrication procedure, high specific energy and specific power. The technology is a power generation device that directly converts chemical energy stored in formic acid and oxygen into electrical energy.

Once successfully developed, the battery will be able to provide about 10 watts of power supply, which means that it can provide power support for most small household appliances. Compared with lithium-ion batteries, direct formic acid fuel cell (DFFC) has many advantages, such as no plug-in charging, high efficiency and lightweight. As technology matures, it is expected to compete with lithium batteries in the small power market. At the same time, formic acid fuel cell has many advantages, such as non-toxic, non-flammable, convenient storage and transportation, electrochemical activity, higher energy density, proton conductivity, lower transmittance to proton exchange membrane, higher output power density at lower temperature, and so on. If such batteries are practical, the electronic industry will become a greater beneficiary. Because of its energy-saving and environmental protection characteristics, with the maturity of technology and cost reduction, formic acid fuel cells will show good industrial application prospects.

Formic acid, as a high value-added chemical product in the resource-based production of carbon dioxide and chemical raw materials, is an additional product of carbon cycle, which reduces production costs. In the future, it will have an important impact on carbon energy recycling and resource diversification.