ESTUDO DA PRODUÇÃO DE HIDROGÊNIO VIA ELETRÓLISE DO ÁCIDO FÓRMICO

Abstract

The global concern about the carbon dioxide emission to the earth's atmosphere has led to more stringent environmental requirements, and this has led to increased research generation of renewable energy and less pollutants, such as hydrogen gas. The main objective of this paper is to produce hydrogen gas, by electrolysis of formic acid solutions by using low cost electrodes as copper and brass. The techniques employed were: cathodic potentiodynamic polarization, chronoamperometry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, optical microscopy and rotating disk electrode. The studies showed the dependence of H2(g) evolution reaction with surface treatment employed, resulting in better polishing with SiC abrasive paper # 320. The hydrogen production also is related to the type of metal electrode used, especially the brass, which showed better results of current density Adding tolitriazol 10-4 mol L-1 and ethylene diamine 10-8 mol L-1 in system containing [HCOOH] = 3 mol L-1 promoted the catalysis of hydrogen evolution reaction, due to the partial adsorption of the same on the surface of metals. With an experimental design was possible to determine the optimum concentrations of formic acid (4 mol L-1) and tolitriazol (5.10-4 mol L-1) to the copper electrode, and to provide for the brass.