NEW ROUTE FOR INCREASING THE AVIATION ALTERNATIVE FUELS PRODUCTION AND OPTIMIZING THE BIOMASS USAGE: FOCUS ON HRJ

摘要

Both Fischer-Tropsch (FT) and Hydroprocessed Renewable Jet (HRJ) synthetic paraffmic kerosine (SPK) fuels are considered as the leading alternative replacements for conventional jet fuel. To satisfy the requirements of Civil Aviation Authorities (CAAs), their drop-in incorporations have been subjected to a rigorous certification process. In order to reach the ambitious incorporation targets, new routes for biofuels incorporation should emerge, involving optimizing the production processes and the blending strategies. This paper focuses on a new incorporation strategy for HRJs, allowing an optimization of the process yield. One of the major steps limiting the process yield for HRJ remains the isomerisation that allows production of a biofuel with very good cold flow properties. But this step introduces a substantial decrease of the overall yield (fuel component per kg of starting material) due to the production of light compounds, unsuitable for conventional jet fuel. So, this work proposes relaxing the freezing point requirement of HRJ (by decreasing the severi^ of the isomerisation step), to minimize the production of less valuable light compounds. This strategy could lead to a significant additional biofuel yield with respect to the oil compared to a process making a better freeze point component. This allows reduction of the necessary land surface area to culture the plant, for a given amount of bio-jet fuel produced.