Influence of spontaneous decomposition on the electrochemical formic acid oxidation on a nanostructured palladium electrode

Abstract

The formic acid electrooxidation reaction was studied in a flow cell in 1 M HCOOH–0.5 M H2SO4 solution on a palladium film electrode. The evaluation of the open circuit potential (OCP) decay demonstrated that the spontaneous dehydrogenation of formic acid is quickly verified, leading to hydrogen adsorption and absorption. Moreover, the absence of carbon containing adsorbed species was verified by the application of voltammetric stripping after OCP and chronoamperometry. The results obtained demonstrate that the electrocatalytic oxidation of formic acid on Pd takes place through the spontaneous HCOOH dissociative adsorption with CO2 evolution and the adsorbed hydrogen electrooxidation.