Vol.:(0123456789) Research on Chemical Intermediates https://doi.org/10.1007/s11164-020-04255-z 1 3 Carbon dioxide conversion into the reaction intermediate sodium formate for the synthesis of formic acid Muhammad Hanan Masood 1  · Noor Haleem 1  · Iqra Shakeel 1,2  · Yousuf Jamal 1 Received: 9 April 2020 / Accepted: 20 August 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020 Abstract Increased carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from anthropogenic activities are a con- tributing factor to the growing global warming worldwide. The economical method to recover and efectively reuse CO 2 is through adsorption and absorption. In this study, CO 2 is absorbed into the solution of sodium hydroxide having various con- centrations (0.01, 0.1, 0.5, 1.0, 3.0 and 5.0 N), and the impact of the solution pH on the various product formation was observed. The resultant products formed at difer- ent pH of the absorbing solution are sodium carbonate at pH 10, Trona at pH 9, and sodium hydrogen carbonate at pH 8. The products formed are confrmed through X-ray difraction analysis. After pH optimization, the sodium hydrogen carbonate formed at pH 8 is converted into sodium formate through hydrogenation in the pres- ence of nickel ferrite catalyst at 80 °C and atmospheric pressure. The sodium for- mate produced is then used as a precursor to synthesize formic acid upon simple reaction with sulfuric acid. A reaction % age yield of 79 ± 0.2% formic acid is noted. Condensed formic acid vapors are later analyzed, using a high performance liquid chromatography for the qualitative analysis. Keywords Carbon dioxide absorption · Sodium carbonate · Sodium hydrogen carbonate · Sodium formate · Nickel ferrite · Formic acid * Yousuf Jamal yousuf.jamal@iese.nust.edu.pk 1 Institute of Environmental Sciences and Engineering (IESE), School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (SCEE), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Sector H-12, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan 2 School of Chemical and Materials Engineering (SCME), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Sector H-12, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan