Formic Acid Dehydrogenation Using Noble-Metal Nanoheterogeneous Catalysts: Towards Sustainable Hydrogen-Based Energy

Noori M Cata Saady,Abbas Al-Nayili,Talib M Albayati,Hasan Sh Majdi

doi:10.3390/catal12030324

Abstract

The need for sustainable energy sources is now more urgent than ever, and hydrogen is significant in the future of energy. However, several obstacles remain in the way of widespread hydrogen use, most of which are related to transport and storage. Dilute formic acid (FA) is recognized asa a safe fuel for low-temperature fuel cells. This review examines FA as a potential hydrogen storage molecule that can be dehydrogenated to yield highly pure hydrogen (H2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) with very little carbon monoxide (CO) gas produced via nanoheterogeneous catalysts. It also present the use of Au and Pd as nanoheterogeneous catalysts for formic acid liquid phase decomposition, focusing on the influence of noble metals in monometallic, bimetallic, and trimetallic compositions on the catalytic dehydrogenation of FA under mild temperatures (20–50 °C). The review shows that FA production from CO2 without a base by direct catalytic carbon dioxide hydrogenation is far more sustainable than existing techniques. Finally, using FA as an energy carrier to selectively release hydrogen for fuel cell power generation appears to be a potential technique.

Highlights

It is widely acknowledged that non-renewable coal and oil may be used for a few decades
We demonstrated that the low temperature required to create hydrogen from formic acid is a critical feature, as fuel cells are intended to provide energy to portable devices with low heat management profiles
Studying formic acid (FA) decomposition using heterogeneous catalysts has occurred since the 1930s, yet optimizing the catalysts, and measuring the carbon monoxide (CO) produced by the FA dehydrationside reaction were not fully examined in early research [44]

Summary

Introduction

It is widely acknowledged that non-renewable coal and oil may be used for a few decades. Certain appropriate compounds have been selected because they have greater hydrogen content and can release hydrogen effectively at ambient conditions (temperature and pressure) by catalytic or non-catalytic methods Examples of such compounds include hydrous hydrazine, metal amidoborates, metal borohydrides, ammonia borane, sodium borohydride and formic acid (HCOOH; FA) [27–31]. Commonly known as liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHC) [38], such as methanol carbazole, cycloalkanes, and others, have been intensively explored in addition to formic acid These compounds have several drawbacks that make them unsuitable as hydrogen storage materials, including toxicity, expense, poor stability, slow dehydrogenation kinetics, and low regeneration efficiency [39,40]. This article reviews recent advances in using FA for chemical hydrogen storage, focusing on its dehydrogenation by metal nanoparticles as nanoheterogeneous catalysts with active noble metals such as Au and Pd at ambient temperature (20–50 ◦C) to obtain high catalytic activity and selectivity. We demonstrated that the low temperature required to create hydrogen from formic acid is a critical feature, as fuel cells are intended to provide energy to portable devices with low heat management profiles

Formic Acid Decomposition

Heterogeneous Catalysts

Monometallic Heterogeneous Catalyst

Bimetallic Heterogeneous Catalyst

Trimetallic Heterogeneous Catalyst

Formic Acid Production

Findings

Conclusions and Perspectives