Manufacturing Of Formic Acid Using Sodium Hydroxide

Abstract

This paper is about the production of formic acid (HCOOH) from local materials.This was done by reacting carbon monoxide and sodium hydroxide to form sodium formate. This was distilled with Sulphuric acid to produce formic acid.The yield from this process was 74.26% formic acid.Some tests were carried out to confirm that the product was formic acid.These include ferric chloric test,carbon test,silver test etc.It was found that temperature and Concentration of H2SO4 affect the yield.Other operating conditions affecting the yield were obtained and their relative importance was also discussed. It was notedthat the distillation process is a second-order reaction with an activation energy of 36.98 cm3atm/gm mole. The concentration of the acid was found to be 2.5 Mol/l and pH was 1.68 the kinematic and dynamic viscosities were 1.3x10-6 M2/s and 1.59x10-3kg/ms respectively.