The Masdar-led initiative focused on green hydrogen to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has been working actively with licensors to certify a new production pathway for SAF from methanol, according to a statement from the alliance of Masdar, TotalEnergies, Siemens Energy, and Marubeni.
With the aid of this innovative method, the aviation sector will be able to reduce its carbon footprint and address the global need for SAF production and availability.
On a demonstration project for e-SAF, the consortium has been working with the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy, Etihad Airways, Lufthansa Group, and Khalifa University of Science and Technology.
Since January 2021, the initiative’s partners have finished a variety of assessments of technology vendors, feasibility studies, and conceptual designs while closely collaborating with authorities on compliance-related concerns. The methanol to jet (MTJ) approach has been selected by the collaboration as its preferred technological solution.
2016 saw the certification of the Alcohol to Jet Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene pathway (ATJ-SPK) as complying with global criteria for jet fuel. This route includes ethanol and iso-butanol among other alcohols. The consortium wants to add methanol, a vital component of the chemical industry, in its purview in order to increase the variety of alcohols covered by this approach. Although the MTJ pathway’s separate parts are, for the most part, mature technologies, they have not yet been combined to create SAF, therefore this path is not yet approved. The collaboration will now collaborate with the MTJ technology’s owners to certify this unique approach as soon as possible.
The CO2 emissions of air travel can be drastically reduced right away with the use of sustainable aviation fuel. It can be utilized as a drop-in fuel without changing the engines, aircraft, or storage and refueling facilities that are already in place. Since biojet fuel typically emits 80% fewer CO2 emissions over its lifetime when made from waste and residue, gradual adoption globally should dramatically reduce the CO2 emissions of air travel.
