Oxidation of Methanol using different oxidizing agents for the synthesis of Formic Acid, and its reactor design

Abstract

Formic acid is the simplest, single carbon atom, carboxylic acid. It is widely used in textile industry and leather tanning industry, for its characteristics of giving best finishing of the dye. Due to the lack of indigenous production of the Formic Acid in Pakistan, it is imported which causes a burden on the exchequer. Various production routes are currently used for the production of Formic Acid; however, currently used methods have associated problems. Conversion of alcohols to their respective carboxylic acids is precedent in literature, so the oxidation of methanol to formic acid was investigated. Possibility of synthesizing Formic acid from methanol, at room temperature using ultraviolet light as a source of energy was tested. Commonly used oxidizing agents, including citric acid, potassium dichromate, potassium permanganate and hydrogen peroxide were tested for the formation of formic acid. High Performance Liquid Chromatography coupled with ultraviolet detector was used for the analysis of the samples. It was observed that except hydrogen peroxide, other oxidizing agents did not give any considerable formation of Formic Acid. Molybdenum oxide was used as a catalyst along with Hydrogen peroxide, to promote the reaction under ultraviolet light. Results showed that process provided considerable conversion of Formic Acid with 85% efficiency. Reaction kinetics was established and a batch reactor was designed on Aspen Plus for the synthesis of Formic Acid.