As part of the EU’s ‘Fit for 55’ programme to reduce carbon emissions, from 2025
2% of all aviation fuels used in the EU should be sustainable. The definition of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) states that carbon emissions must be at least half that of fossil aviation fuels throughout its life cycle. The share of sustainable fuels is expected to increase to 6% in 2030, 34% in 2040 and 70% in 2050.
To meet the expected demand, the production of SAF needs to pick up speed. One of the promising and market-ready technologies is the use of ethanol, the Alcohol-to-Jet (AtJ) process.
Alcohol-to-Jet (AtJ) Procedure
The Alcohol-to-Jet (AtJ) process uses raw materials based on biomass containing sugar and starch. Biotech Energy only uses biomass residues. These are first converted to ethanol and dehydrated.
There are various approaches to ethanol production, such as the bio-chemical production of butanol or the thermo-chemical synthesis of methanol before the alcohols are processed into liquid hydrocarbon fuel.
Production routes in addition to the Alcohol-to-Jet (AtJ) process
Currently, there are eight approved processes for the production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel, which are certified in standards (ASTM D7566) – Alcohol-to-Jet (AtJ) is one of them. The manufacturing routes are also recognized by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
In total, there are a number of technologies that can be used to produce a synthetic kerosene similar to that from fossil jet fuel Jet A-1 from various raw materials such as algae, biogas and animal fats. These include the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process, the HEFA (Hydroprocessing of Esters and Fatty Acids) process, and AtJ-SPK (Alcohol-to-Jet Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene), to name just three.
Starchy-residues > Fermentation > Distillation > Alcohol-to-Jet > Max. 50% SAF
Advantages of Sustainable Aviation Fuels
Currently, all non-fossil aviation fuels are blended with the conventional Jet A-1 kerosene. These sustainable drop-in fuels have the following advantages:
- They are compatible and miscible with each other.
- They meet the same high quality and safety requirements.
- There is no need to make any technical changes to the aircraft, for example to turbines or refuelling.
Many processes can only access raw materials in a limited quantity through their process. The Biotech Energy Technology (BET), which is used in Alcohol-to-Jet (AtJ), means that the availability of the raw materials used is more extensive. Thus, the availability of biomass from residues of the protein feed agents of the BTE is much greater.
Result
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is one of the levers in the short-term reduction of CO2 emissions in aviation. Airlines are increasingly using sustainable kerosene and must meet a SAF quota of 2% by 2025 at the latest.
Due to a major challenge in the availability of raw materials, BET will be able to provide sufficient quantities of CO2-neutral aviation fuels for the production of alcohol-to-jet in the future.
Biotech Energy is now in the process of building up the appropriate production capacities to help increase capacity volumes for the alcohol-to-jet process.