From CO₂ to Sustainable Aviation Fuel: Navigating the Technology Landscape

Abstract

Sustainable jet fuel plays a crucial role in reducing aviation's carbon footprint, offering a promising approach toward net-zero emissions in the aviation sector. This work investigates pathways for producing jet fuels directly from CO 2 . Given the early stage of many direct CO 2 utilization technologies, identifying promising pathways is essential. Our investigation focuses on the three most important routes for jet fuel production, each of which employs a distinct intermediate compound. These routes are the reverse water−gas shift and Fischer−Tropsch (RWGS-FT) route, the methanol route, and the CO 2 electrolysis route, which employ syngas, methanol, and ethylene as key intermediates, respectively. By performing comprehensive process simulations and analyzing the resulting energy intensity and thermal and CO 2 efficiency of each route, these findings provide quantitative early-stage evaluations and allow us to identify key technical development requirements. Our results indicate that the methanol route exhibits the lowest energy intensity, followed by the RWGS-FT and CO 2 electrolysis routes. H 2 production accounts for a significant share of the energy demand for the RWGS-FT and methanol routes. The RWGS-FT route shows the lowest CO 2 efficiency, while the methanol route achieves 92% CO 2 efficiency including recycle streams, highlighting its potential for jet fuel production. Furthermore, the CO 2 electrolysis route holds the potential to achieve close to 100% CO 2 efficiency and requires significantly less H 2 feedstock. However, it faces challenges of a high energy demand. In addition, our study investigates key effects of potential technology optimization, providing a guideline for research and technology optimization.