sodium formate

Sodium formate is used in several fabric dyeing and printing processes.

Sodium formate can be prepared in the laboratory by neutralizing formic acid with sodium carbonate.

For commercial use, sodium formate is produced by absorbing carbon monoxide under pressure in solid sodium hydroxide at 160 C.

Sodium formate may also be created via the haloform reaction between ethanol and sodium hypochlorite in the presence of a base.

Nitric oxide can also react directly with sodium methoxide, forming sodium formate and nitrous oxide.

Sodium formate (HCOONa)

Sodium formate, HCOONa, is the sodium salt of formic acid, HCOOH.

Among the many preparations, a typical one involves the reaction of sodium formate with benzoyl fluoride (generated in situ from KHF and benzoyl chloride):

In this variation, the reductant is formaldehyde, which is oxidized to sodium formate and the corresponding alcohol is obtained in a high yield, although the atom economy is still low.

During the class lectures, Lipscomb in the back of the classroom did research that he thought was original (but he later found was not): the preparation of hydrogen from sodium formate (or sodium oxalate) and sodium hydroxide.

The latter method is, in general, preferred to the former because the low aqueous solubility of CHCl makes it easier to separate out from the sodium formate solution, by fractional crystallization, than the soluble NaCl would be.

It has been shown that the irradiation of aqueous solutions of lead compounds leads to the formation of elemental lead, when an inorganic solid such as bentonite and sodium formate are present then the lead is removed from the aqueous solution.

It can be produced by reaction between sodium formate and acetyl chloride in anhydrous diethyl ether, at 23-27 C. Among other uses, it is a formylation agent for amines, amino acids, and alcohols, and a starting material for formyl fluoride.

The simultaneous addition of sodium formate to such systems resulted in increased citrovorum factor activity in the cell-free supernatants (producing, as we know now, the 5-formyl derivative), and from this method of preparation of large amounts of the factor, its structure as levo-folinic acid (5-formyl tetrahydrofolic acid) was eventually deduced.