A Feasibility Study into the Formic Acid Economy

Completed

Hydrogen and Fuel Cells(Fuel Cells, Stationary applications)
Hydrogen and Fuel Cells(Hydrogen, Hydrogen production)
Hydrogen and Fuel Cells(Fuel Cells, Mobile applications)
Hydrogen and Fuel Cells(Fuel Cells, Other applications)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Chemical Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Dr BG Davis
Oxford Chemistry
University of Oxford

Standard

EPSRC

31 October 2005

30 October 2006

12 months

£81,269

Catalysis & surfaces

South East

Cross-Discipline Interface

Dr BG Davis, Oxford Chemistry, University of Oxford

Professor MG Davidson, Chemistry, University of Bath
Professor PJ Hall, Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Sheffield
Professor C Rayner, Sch of Chemistry, University of Leeds
Professor SCE Tsang, Oxford Chemistry, University of Oxford

Project Contact, Huntsman ICI Chemicals

It is essential to develop new, cheap, reliable and efficient power systems that do not contribute to global warming. There is a lot of interest in hydrogen because it can be produced cleanly from a large range of sources (biological, solar, wind etc). Unfortunately, it is difficult to store hydrogen and this limits its application. The proposal here is to combine hydrogen with CO2 from the atmosphere to produce an intermediate chemical called formic acid. Formic acid can be used as a fuelfor fuel cells, which are essentially batteries that can be operated continuously, if they are provided with fuel. They are more efficient than conventional internal combustion engines, silent and non-polluting. Formic acid has not been tested extensively as a fuel but is very promising because it may be possible to increase fuel cell efficiency as well as reducing their cost

01/01/07