[Kasteli]

Hi I've got a few liters of methanol which I dont really need that much so I decided to turn it into formic acid.

I was looking for some cheap and avaible method so compounds like KMnO4 or K2CrO7 fall from above they are expensive and creates fire hazard at that scale (I would like to do it in series of half to one liter of substarte).

What I come up with is NaClO which is strong oxidizing agent and from what I know it can turn methanol to formaline on it's own, but can I use it to make formic acid as well? If so then under what condition and does it need catalist? If it's not possible then what method can you advise?

I have hard time searching on it in internet so I wisch you can help.

thanks in advance

[wildfyr]

This is... more trouble than its worth to just buy it?

[Kasteli]

This is... more trouble than its worth to just buy it?

Probably yeah but at this point I would like to try it just to check if I am capable to.

[Enthalpy]

From what Google told me
formaldehyde oxidation "formic acid"
it doesn't even need an artificial oxidizer. Just air and water vapour suffice, over a catalyst.

Oxidation from alcohol to aldehyde too happens with air and a catalyst. Google
methanol oxidation formaldehyde

Done in trains amount.

[Kasteli]

Can you give example of such catalist I have found about copper metal i high temperatures react with air to produce CuO then oxidize methanol to formaline regenerating metalic copper and so on but conditions makes this method inpractical for amatour chemist like me.

[Enthalpy]

Google is your friend.

These reactions are done in pre-A-level classrooms so I expect an amateur to achieve them.

[rolnor]

You can oxidise methanol to aldehyde with hypochlorite/TEMPO. To acid I would use potasium permanganate.