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KEROSENE MADE FROM AIR COULD MAKE FLYING MORE SUSTAINABLE
16 Jun 2019
A different take on flying Dutchmen: Rotterdam The Hague Airport and a European consortium want to create the worldâ€™s first commercial system producing aircraft fuel made from air.
In addition to Rotterdam The Hague Airport, the companies EDL Anlagebau , Climeworks ,Ineratec and Sunfire are involved in the pilot project. Based on a study, the plan is to make aircraft fuel in a demonstration system using CO2 from the air and sustainably produced electricity. In comparison to conventional kerosene made from fossil raw materials, this will achieve a significantly better CO2 balance and lower emissions of fine dust.
Various technologies are being brought together for this: first, CO2 is removed from the ambient air with the aid of direct air capture technology from Climeworks. The gas is then converted into synthetic gas by electrolysis with the electrolysis cells developed by Sunfire and it is then converted into synthetic hydrocarbons in a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis system from Ineratec. The company EDL is responsible for the overall process and system integration for converting the synthetic hydrocarbons into aircraft fuel. With a planned production capacity of approx. 1000 liters per day, the manufacture of renewable aircraft fuel from air would far exceed the laboratory scale of just a few liters per day.