(Credit: Pixabay)With the drive toward sustainable air travel intensifying, airlines and other air transportation companies are ramping up their use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). But as SAF demand grows, the aviation industry will be challenged by limited supplies of traditional SAF feedstocks like inedible animal fats and waste oils.
To meet demand in the face of limited supplies of these traditional SAF feedstocks, technology companies are competing to create new forms of SAF. Honeywell is the latest to announce a new technology for creation of SAF, describing it as "innovative ethanol-to-jet fuel processing technology that allows producers to convert corn-based, cellulosic, or sugar-based ethanol into sustainable aviation fuel."
Honeywell says that, depending on the type of ethanol feedstock used, jet fuel produced from this ethanol-to-jet fuel process can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% on a total lifecycle basis, compared to petroleum-based jet fuel.
SAF plants using Honeywell’s technology can be modularized off-site, which leads to lower installed costs and faster, less labor-intensive installation compared to job site construction. By utilizing Honeywell’s ethanol-to-jet-fuel technology and an integrated, modular construction approach, "producers can build new SAF capacity more than a year faster than is possible with traditional construction approaches," the company says.
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy says that some emerging SAF pathways even have a net-negative GHG footprint, and that “many SAFs contain fewer aromatic components, which enables them to burn cleaner in aircraft engines. This means lower local emissions of harmful compounds around airports during take-off and landing. Aromatic components are also precursors to contrails, which can exacerbate the impacts of climate change.”
Air Company, a carbon technology company that creates carbon-negative alcohols and fuels from carbon dioxide (CO2), recently announced a SAF made from captured CO2.
Global aviation partners for this 100% unblended CO2-derived jet fuel — distributed under the name Airmade SAF — have committed to purchase over one billion gallons; these include JetBlue, Virgin Atlantic, and Boom Supersonic, among others. The United States Air Force has already started its Airmade SAF partnership with the completion of an unmanned flight using Airmade SAF.
Atlantic Biomass also recently signed a Letter of Intent with Bionoid signaling their joint commitment to producing commercial quantities of SAF from residual hemp biomass. This LOI will lead to the production of SAF and other bioproducts from up to 190,000 tons of annual residual hemp biomass harvests.
