The engineers put a material on the table that could change the future of aviation

Aviation needs about 378.5 billion liters of fuel every year, and according to surveys, this could double in the next 20 years. But there is growing pressure from environmentalists for the industry to use low-carbon alternatives to current fuels.

Aircraft manufacturers have already started research and development for the development of engines that (also) use SAF, the tests are also promising, but more environmentally friendly fuels are also needed for this. SAF is produced from vegetable oils, animal fat and waste oil. According to the industry rules, such fuel can currently only be used if it is mixed with kerosene in such a way that the ratio of the two substances is 50-50 percent. Recently, however, an engine that uses only SAF 100 percent has been successfully tested.

The hopes for SAF, that it can help decarbonize aviation, are high, but the cost of producing the fuel is relatively high. A new development at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory could change that: engineers have created a catalyst that could speed up the commercial production of sustainable jet fuel.

https://hvg.hu/tudomany/20260403_asiana-airlines-szoul-budapest-jarat-indulas-oz547-airbus-a350-900-ebx

The solution is based on a method that converts ethanol – that is, ethyl alcohol – which is usually obtained from vegetable or waste raw materials into alkenes, that is, olefins (ETO). This conversion typically involves several steps, but the newly approved catalyst does it in a single step. This significantly improves the production process, it says Interesting Engineering.

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