PROGRESS AND TRENDS OF PRODUCTION OF RENEWABLE FUELS VIA CATALYTIC MODE

Air transport is completely dependent upon liquid hydrocarbon fuels because of their requirement of high energy density. Aviation fuel from renewable sources is a “DROP-IN” alternative for air transport as it has a similar high energy density and meets all the required fuel specifications. This chapter describes advances in this area and future challenges. Major challenges faced by the industry with respect to the development of alternative aviation fuel are - high quality standards requirements, safety issues, wide range of operational conditions and drop-in kind with traditional aviation jet fuel.  Liquid biofuels are the only low-CO₂ emission option for substituting traditional aviation turbine fuel (ATF), as they have high specific energy content and can be blended with commercial ATF.  Hydrogenated vegetable and animal fats and oils, Fischer-Tropsch (FT) based on biomass, Renewable Synthesized Iso-Paraffinic (SIP) fuel to jet fuel are some of the option available to produce aviation fuel and are included in approved ASTM standard. The feedstock can be classified into three categories based on the downstream process:

1. Oil containing biomass

2. Lignocellulose biomass

3. Sugars and Starch biomass.

The first two categories is processed via thermal or catalytic or combination of these two routes to produce fuel, while the third category of feedstock is converted via enzymatic or catalytic or combination of these two routes.