Synthesis and Characterization of a complex mixture based on cobalt and tin and study of its application towards production of hydrogen gas from ethanol

Abstract

The Cobalt complex, (Co-DMET) has been synthesized from the reaction between cobalt chloride hexahydrate and dimethoxy ethane (DME) in a 1:1 molar ratio and characterized using various measurement techniques. The structural formula of this complex derived based on characterization is [Co(DMET)2(H2O)2]Cl2. 4H2O. Dimethoxy ethane is an O-donating ligand able to coordinate in a chelate mode to the central metal cobalt to form the complex. The bidentate ligand is used to make the complex more stable. This complex was further mixed with the catalytic amount of SnO2 to obtain a complex mixture, (Co-DMET-Sn) and its application towards hydrogen production from ethanol at temperature 333 K was checked. Liberation of H2 gas is found to be maximum at 15 cc of ethanol when charged with 1: 0.1 molar ratios of cobalt-DMET complex and SnO2. This same cobalt-DMET-tin mixture was charged with various quantities of ethanol ranging from 5.0 cc to 50.0 cc at temperature 333 K. Amount of H2(g) liberated from ethanol was estimated to be 14.92 % using Gas Liquid Chromatography(GLC). The cobalt is used due to less expensive than the other metals such as Pt which is generally used for catalytic purpose. Crystallite size of the Cobalt-DMET-tin complex was found to be 23.4 nm.