Controlled Generation of Hydrogen from Formic Acid Amine Adducts at Room Temperature and Application in H2/O2 Fuel Cells
✍ Scribed by Björn Loges; Albert Boddien; Henrik Junge; Matthias Beller
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2008
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 323 KB
- Volume
- 47
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0044-8249
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Dedicated to Professor Boy Cornils on the occasion of his 70th birthday
One of the central challenges of this century is the sufficient and sustainable supply of energy. In this respect, advancements in hydrogen technology, such as the generation of hydrogen from suitable starting materials, its storage and conversion into electrical energy, are of particular interest.
Besides methane and methanol, renewable resources, such as (bio)ethanol and glycerol, are considered as promising sources for hydrogen production. [1] Nevertheless, their use remains difficult, as the applied reforming processes run at high temperature (> 200 8C). Thus, improved technologies for generating hydrogen at higher reaction rates and under milder conditions are required. At present, hydrogen can be only produced at ambient temperatures by the reaction of metals or metal compounds, for example, NaBH 4 , with water. However, these compounds have obvious disadvantages, such as toxicity, price, and safety.
To the best of our knowledge there is no reaction system known at present which is able to generate hydrogen from organic products in a controlled manner at room temperature. [2] Herein we demonstrate the possibility of generating hydrogen on demand from mixtures of formic acid and amines at room temperature. Notably, formic acid as a hydrogen source is non-toxic and can be handled and stored easily. [3] Our previous work on the development of low-temperature hydrogen generating systems used alcohols as feedstock. [2e-g] More recently, we had the idea to apply carbon dioxide as storage media for hydrogen. Based on the catalytic processes of formation and decomposition of formic acid, a power supply system should be possible. Figure 1 depicts a CO 2 -neutral hydrogen storage cycle. Although CO 2 is available in huge amounts on the earth, the use of carbon dioxide for hydrogen storage has been largely neglected until now and should be paid more attention in future. [4] Hydrogenation of carbon dioxide is thermodynamically an uphill process, and therefore a base is needed to give