Swiss Savants Produce Jet Fuel From Sunlight, CO2 And Water

Researchers at ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, have successfully created a synthetic version of kerosene, the main ingredient in jet fuel, using solar energy, water, and carbon dioxide in a fully integrated solar tower set-up, Kerry Hebden reported for the July-August 2022 issue of The Chemical Engineer journal. 

Photo Insert: What first started off as a rooftop experiment in Switzerland has now grown to an array of 169 sun-tracking spherical reflectors which concentrates around 50 kW of solar radiative power – equivalent to 2,500 Suns – onto a solar redox reactor mounted on a tower near Madrid, Spain.

The global fuel consumption by commercial airlines has been increasing every year since 2009 and had reached an all-time high of 432 billion liters in 2019 before the pandemic thwarted global travel plans.

That fuel is made primarily of kerosene, a hydrocarbon derived from petroleum, which when burned releases CO2.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), around 1.027 billion tons of CO2 emissions were produced from fossil jet kerosene combustion in 2019, and although the figure took a tumble during lockdowns, air travel is now once again booming.

This renewed interest in flying is expected to bump-up global energy-related CO2 emissions from aviation to 3.5% by 2030, compared with 2.5% reported in 2019.

With countries pushing to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, industries are now looking at renewable or alternative fuels such as biofuels to help end our reliance on fossil fuels. Blended biofuels – lower-carbon sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) with fossil jet fuel – has been in use since 2008, but only five airports have regular biofuel distribution today.

Another promising alternative that relies even less on fossil fuels is syngas.

Syngas is produced by the conversion of hydrogen and CO into liquid hydrocarbons using a catalyst. This method, known as the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process can produce hydrocarbons of different molecular weights from organic acids and alcohol, to methane and higher molecular olefins and paraffins.

Taking this idea one step further by making it even more environmentally friendly, a team of Swiss researchers has been working on an experiment to break down water and CO2 collected from the air using concentrated solar energy.

What first started off as a rooftop experiment in Switzerland has now grown to an array of 169 sun-tracking spherical reflectors which concentrates around 50 kW of solar radiative power – equivalent to 2,500 Suns – onto a solar redox reactor mounted on a tower near Madrid, Spain.

The concentrated energy is then directed into a 16cm wide aperture on the reactor at the top of the tower and is used to thermally reduce the redox material and cerium oxide at temperatures of around 1,500°C.

When CO2 and water enter the chamber, the reduced ceria is then reoxidized and CO and hydrogen are generated. These in turn are processed to liquid hydrocarbon fuels using the Fischer–Tropsch unit at the base of the tower.

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