Abstract
Carbon dioxide (CO2) utilization alternatives for manufacturing formic acid (FA) such as electrochemical reduction (ER) or homogeneous catalysis of CO2 and H2 could be efficient options for developing more environmentally-friendly production alternatives to FA fossil-dependant production. However, these alternatives are currently found at different technological readiness levels (TRLs), and some remaining technical challenges need to be overcome to achieve at least carbon-even FA compared to the commercial process, especially ER of CO2, which is still farther from its industrial application. The main technical limitations inherited by FA production by ER are the low FA concentration achieved and the high overpotentials required, which involve high consumptions of energy (ER cell) and steam (distillation). In this study, a comparison in terms of carbon footprints (CF) using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool was done to evaluate the potential technological challenges assuring the environmental competitiveness of the FA production by ER of CO2. The CF of the FA conventional production were used as a benchmark, as well as the CF of a simulated plant based on homogeneous catalysts of CO2 and H2 (found closer to be commercial). Renewable energy utilization as PV solar for the reaction is essential to achieve a carbon-even product; however, the CF benefits are still negligible due to the enormous contribution of the steam produced by natural gas (purification stage). Some ER reactor configurations, plus a recirculation mode, could achieve an even CF versus commercial process. It was demonstrated that the ER alternatives could lead to lower natural resources consumption (mainly, natural gas and heavy fuel oil) compared to the commercial process, which is a noticeable advantage in environmental sustainability terms.
Highlights
Formic acid (FA) is a valuable chemical product that is difficult to replace in certain applications.Its strong acidic and reducing properties make it useful in agriculture, pharmaceutics, food, textiles, and chemicals
A1.2 and A1.3 represent the best champion data available in the literature regarding FA production by electrochemical reduction (ER) in terms of concentration. Their estimated values of carbon footprints (CF) were compared with those CF values corresponding to the FA conventional (ACONV ) process [27] and the simulated CO2 utilization alternative based on homogeneous catalysis of CO2 and H2, which was found in the literature (AJCR ) [6]
This study considers that other salts and acids used in ER process can be perfectly recirculated
Summary
Formic acid (FA) is a valuable chemical product that is difficult to replace in certain applications.Its strong acidic and reducing properties make it useful in agriculture, pharmaceutics, food, textiles, and chemicals. Formic acid (FA) is a valuable chemical product that is difficult to replace in certain applications. FA has recently been suggested as a promising hydrogen storage component via its decomposition to CO2 and H2 with a possible reversible transformation back to regenerate formic acid, which serves as a platform for chemical energy storage [1]. The conventional production processes of FA are based mainly on fossil fuels utilization. Production processes of formic acid can be classified into four groups: methyl formate hydrolysis, oxidation of hydrocarbons, hydrolysis of formamide, and preparation of formic acid from formates. The methyl formate-based process route is currently dominant [2]. Worldwide formic acid production capacity by hydrolysis of methyl formate was estimated at 770 kton·year−1 in 2014, covering approximately 90% of the overall installed capacity
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