Agriculture

A major use of formic acid is as preservative and antibacterial agent in livestock feed. Formic acid arrests certain decay processes and causes the feed to retain its nutritive value longer, and so it is widely used to preserve winter feed for cattle.

INDUSTRIAL USE

Formic acid can be used in a fuel cell (it can be used directly in formic acid fuel cells and indirectly in hydrogen fuel cells).

Electrolytic conversion of electrical energy to chemical fuel has been proposed as a large-scale source of formate by various groups.

Soldering

Formic acid has a potential application in soldering. Due to its capacity to reduce oxide layers, formic acid gas can be blasted at an oxide surface to increase solder wettability.

Chromatography

Formic acid used as a volatile pH modifier in HPLC and capillary electrophoresis. Formic acid is often used as a component of mobile phase in reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography 

Other uses

Formic acid is also significantly used in the production of leather, including tanning , and in dyeing and finishing textiles because of its acidic nature.

Formic acid application has been reported to be an effective treatment for warts.

Safety

Formic acid has low toxicity. The concentrated acid is corrosive to the skin.

 it has specific toxic effects; the formic acid and formaldehyde produced as metabolites of methanol are responsible for the optic nerve damage, causing blindness, seen in methanol poisoning. Chronic exposure in humans may cause kidney damage. Another possible effect of chronic exposure is development of a skin allergy that manifests upon re-exposure to the chemical.