It's all about FA (Formic Acid)

Dmitri Gelman, Chemistry, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

The formic acid (FA) market, along with its end products, has witnessed a linear growth in the past decade and this growth is estimated to increase in the coming years. Formic acid is one of the basic organic chemical raw materials widely used in pesticide, leather, dyes, pharmaceuticals and rubber industries. Besides these applications, formic acid is now regarded as a promising material for chemical hydrogen storage. Indeed, considering that fossil fuel reserves are running out rapidly across the world, and that human activities utilizing fossil fuels as a primary energy source cause dramatic climatic changes and environmental pollution problems, the low-carbon economy based on formic acid, as an energy carrier, and CO_2, as a valuable entry into the chemical supply chain, make sense.

We will describe the design of novel catalytic systems for dehydrogenation of formic acid/hydrogenation of carbon dioxide and in the development of generic transformations using formic acid as a source of H₂ and CO₂. This goal is motivated by the economic and ecological sustainability of formic acid, as well as by importance of fundamental understanding of carbon dioxide interactions with transition metal catalysts. In particular, the catalysts focused here belong to the family of 3-D bifunctional PC(sp³)P pincer complexes developed in our group in the recent years.