Sciencemadness Discussion Board

formaldehyde from HCOOH?

Hoffmann-LaRoche - 10-9-2002 at 04:56

ive recently thought of making formaldehyde by reducing HCOOH or oxalic acid with nascent hydrogen.
Im not sure wether this would be a realizable process, but it could be quite cheap if the HCOOH was also self-made by reacting CO with NaOH and sulfuric acid.

Formaldehyde

Yetrox - 10-9-2002 at 11:28

Heya!

You might find the following methods interesting:

1.
Reactant: Formic Acid
Reagent: Water, Magnesium
Journal, Fenton JCS0A9; J.Chem.Soc; 91;1907;690

2.
Reactant: Formic Acid
Reagent: Zinc Oxide
yields Zinc-oxyformate which has to be heated up to 270 C,

3.
Reactant: Diethyl Ether
Reagent: Copper Oxide

I don't know the detailed procedures though.

Nick

Hoffmann-LaRoche - 10-9-2002 at 13:52

thanks dude.....i´m confident one of these meths will work.....although some of them arent that cheap.
I also had some similar ideas..
Let`s see wether that works next weekend..

vulture - 11-9-2002 at 10:25

Check the methanal thread for another method starting from methanol.

cant get no MOH, Vulture

Hoffmann-LaRoche - 11-9-2002 at 13:34

thanks but i cant get methanol where i live.
Thats why i am fooling around with this stuff..

Greetings, HLR

vulture - 12-9-2002 at 11:22

Are you sure? Even no spiritus for alcohol burners?

Hoffmann-LaRoche - 12-9-2002 at 16:40

absolutely nowhere.
It is declared highly poisonous here, and it needs a special permission to get it.

Can you think of other routes for CH2O?

vulture - 13-9-2002 at 07:45

Hydrating an alkyne yields aldehydes, but that must be a heavily catalized and pressurized reaction.

Or hydrating a halogenalkane to an alcohol and then oxidizing to aldehyde?