Highly active iridium catalyst for hydrogen production from formic acid

Formic acid (FA) dehydrogenation has attracted a lot of attentions since it is a convenient method for H₂ production. In this work, we designed a self-supporting fuel cell system, in which H₂ from FA is supplied into the fuel cell, and the exhaust heat from the fuel cell supported the FA dehydrogenation. In order to realize the system, we synthesized a highly active and selective homogeneous catalyst IrCp^*Cl₂bpym for FA dehydrogenation. The turnover frequency (TOF) of the catalyst for FA dehydrogenation is as high as 7150 h^-1 at 50 ℃, and is up to 144,000 h^-1 at 90 ℃. The catalyst also shows excellent catalytic stability for FA dehydrogenation after several cycles of test. The conversion ratio of FA can achieve 93.2%, and no carbon monoxide is detected in the evolved gas. Therefore, the evolved gas could be applied in the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) directly. This is a potential technology for hydrogen storage and generation. The power density of the PEMFC driven by the evolved gas could approximate to that using pure hydrogen.