Production of performic acid through a capillary microreactor by heterogeneous catalyst

Abstract

Abstract Microreactors are small in size with significant heat and mass transfer. Performic acid (PFA) is an important organic compound. It has broad applications in food, oil and chemical industries because of its oxidizing properties. In the present work PFA is produced in a continuous flow Teflon spiral capillary microreactor. The PFA is produced with and without a heterogeneous catalyst. The formic acid (FA) and hydrogen peroxide (HP) are the reactants to produce the PFA. It is a reversible reaction. The aim of the present work to monitor the consequence of hydrogen peroxide concentration, temperature and heterogeneous catalyst (Amberlite) for conversion of the FA. The experimental results showed that the formation of the PFA is effected with increase in hydrogen peroxide concentration, percentage of catalyst and temperature. The PFA formed within short residence time by the use of solid catalyst. The heterogeneous catalysts are better in decreasing corrosion and segregation of the catalyst compared to homogeneous catalysts. The best conditions for the PFA synthesis reaction were noted that 10 min residence time, 30 w/v% of HP, 6 wt% of catalyst concentration based on formic acid and 30 °C. Hence, the maximum concentration of the PFA was recorded 2.8 mol/L (XFA = 39.4%)