IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v15y2022i7p2440-d780146.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Use of Sustainable Fuels in Aviation—A Review

Author

Listed:
  • Eduardo Cabrera

    (Instituto Superior Técnico, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal)

  • João M. Melo de Sousa

    (IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal)

Abstract

As the push for carbon-neutral transport continues, the aviation sector is facing increasing pressure to reduce its carbon footprint. Furthermore, commercial air traffic is expected to resume the continuous growth experienced until the pandemic, highlighting the need for reduced emissions. The use of alternative fuels plays a key role in achieving future emission goals, while also lowering the dependency on fossil fuels. The so-called sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), which encompass bio and synthetic fuels, are currently the most viable option, but hydrogen is also being considered as a long-term solution. The present paper reviews the production methods, logistical and technological barriers, and potential for future mass implementation of these alternative fuels. In general, biofuels currently present higher technological readiness levels than other alternatives. Sustainable mass production faces critical feedstock-related challenges that synthetic fuels, together with other solutions, can overcome. All conventional fuel replacements, though with different scopes, will be important in meeting long-term goals. Government support will play an important role in accelerating and facilitating the transition towards sustainable aviation.

Suggested Citation

  • Eduardo Cabrera & João M. Melo de Sousa, 2022. "Use of Sustainable Fuels in Aviation—A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-23, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:7:p:2440-:d:780146
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/7/2440/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/7/2440/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Purushothaman Paneerselvam & Gnanamoorthi Venkadesan & Mebin Samuel Panithasan & Gurusamy Alaganathan & Sławomir Wierzbicki & Maciej Mikulski, 2021. "Evaluating the Influence of Cetane Improver Additives on the Outcomes of a Diesel Engine Characteristics Fueled with Peppermint Oil Diesel Blend," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-15, May.
    2. Herz, Gregor & Rix, Christopher & Jacobasch, Eric & Müller, Nils & Reichelt, Erik & Jahn, Matthias & Michaelis, Alexander, 2021. "Economic assessment of Power-to-Liquid processes – Influence of electrolysis technology and operating conditions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    3. Mafalda Narciso & João M. Melo de Sousa, 2021. "Influence of Sustainable Aviation Fuels on the Formation of Contrails and Their Properties," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-19, September.
    4. Kandaramath Hari, Thushara & Yaakob, Zahira & Binitha, Narayanan N., 2015. "Aviation biofuel from renewable resources: Routes, opportunities and challenges," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 1234-1244.
    5. Singh, Anoop & Olsen, Stig Irving, 2011. "A critical review of biochemical conversion, sustainability and life cycle assessment of algal biofuels," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(10), pages 3548-3555.
    6. Varone, Alberto & Ferrari, Michele, 2015. "Power to liquid and power to gas: An option for the German Energiewende," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 207-218.
    7. Buttler, Alexander & Spliethoff, Hartmut, 2018. "Current status of water electrolysis for energy storage, grid balancing and sector coupling via power-to-gas and power-to-liquids: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 2440-2454.
    8. Baroutaji, Ahmad & Wilberforce, Tabbi & Ramadan, Mohamad & Olabi, Abdul Ghani, 2019. "Comprehensive investigation on hydrogen and fuel cell technology in the aviation and aerospace sectors," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 31-40.
    9. Drünert, Sebastian & Neuling, Ulf & Zitscher, Tjerk & Kaltschmitt, Martin, 2020. "Power-to-Liquid fuels for aviation – Processes, resources and supply potential under German conditions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moaaz Shehab & Kai Moshammer & Meik Franke & Edwin Zondervan, 2023. "Analysis of the Potential of Meeting the EU’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel Targets in 2030 and 2050," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-20, June.
    2. Vishal Ram & Surender Reddy Salkuti, 2023. "An Overview of Major Synthetic Fuels," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-35, March.
    3. Diego Luna & Rafael Estevez, 2022. "Optimization of Biodiesel and Biofuel Process," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-4, August.
    4. Teresa Castiglione & Diego Perrone & Luciano Strafella & Antonio Ficarella & Sergio Bova, 2023. "Linear Model of a Turboshaft Aero-Engine Including Components Degradation for Control-Oriented Applications," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-18, March.
    5. Tobias Mueller & Steven Gronau, 2023. "Fostering Macroeconomic Research on Hydrogen-Powered Aviation: A Systematic Literature Review on General Equilibrium Models," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-33, February.
    6. Lucas Reijnders, 2022. "Defining and Operationalizing Sustainability in the Context of Energy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-9, July.
    7. Rafael Estevez & Laura Aguado-Deblas & Francisco J. López-Tenllado & Carlos Luna & Juan Calero & Antonio A. Romero & Felipa M. Bautista & Diego Luna, 2022. "Biodiesel Is Dead: Long Life to Advanced Biofuels—A Comprehensive Critical Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-39, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zoltán Csedő & Máté Zavarkó & Balázs Vaszkun & Sára Koczkás, 2021. "Hydrogen Economy Development Opportunities by Inter-Organizational Digital Knowledge Networks," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-26, August.
    2. Gábor Pörzse & Zoltán Csedő & Máté Zavarkó, 2021. "Disruption Potential Assessment of the Power-to-Methane Technology," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-21, April.
    3. Bellocchi, Sara & De Falco, Marcello & Gambini, Marco & Manno, Michele & Stilo, Tommaso & Vellini, Michela, 2019. "Opportunities for power-to-Gas and Power-to-liquid in CO2-reduced energy scenarios: The Italian case," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 847-861.
    4. Gao, Ruxing & Zhang, Leiyu & Wang, Lei & Zhang, Chundong & Jun, Ki-Won & Kim, Seok Ki & Park, Hae-Gu & Gao, Ying & Zhu, Yuezhao & Wan, Hui & Guan, Guofeng & Zhao, Tiansheng, 2022. "Efficient production of renewable hydrocarbon fuels using waste CO2 and green H2 by integrating Fe-based Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and olefin oligomerization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    5. Herz, Gregor & Rix, Christopher & Jacobasch, Eric & Müller, Nils & Reichelt, Erik & Jahn, Matthias & Michaelis, Alexander, 2021. "Economic assessment of Power-to-Liquid processes – Influence of electrolysis technology and operating conditions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    6. Gray, Nathan & O'Shea, Richard & Smyth, Beatrice & Lens, Piet N.L. & Murphy, Jerry D., 2022. "What is the energy balance of electrofuels produced through power-to-fuel integration with biogas facilities?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    7. Valerie Eveloy & Tesfaldet Gebreegziabher, 2018. "A Review of Projected Power-to-Gas Deployment Scenarios," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-52, July.
    8. Fózer, Dániel & Volanti, Mirco & Passarini, Fabrizio & Varbanov, Petar Sabev & Klemeš, Jiří Jaromír & Mizsey, Péter, 2020. "Bioenergy with carbon emissions capture and utilisation towards GHG neutrality: Power-to-Gas storage via hydrothermal gasification," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    9. Klöckner, Kai & Letmathe, Peter, 2020. "Is the coherence of coal phase-out and electrolytic hydrogen production the golden path to effective decarbonisation?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    10. Ahmad Baroutaji & Arun Arjunan & John Robinson & Tabbi Wilberforce & Mohammad Ali Abdelkareem & Abdul Ghani Olabi, 2021. "PEMFC Poly-Generation Systems: Developments, Merits, and Challenges," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-31, October.
    11. Qichen Wang & Zhengmeng Hou & Yilin Guo & Liangchao Huang & Yanli Fang & Wei Sun & Yuhan Ge, 2023. "Enhancing Energy Transition through Sector Coupling: A Review of Technologies and Models," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-31, July.
    12. Eveloy, Valerie & Gebreegziabher, Tesfaldet, 2019. "Excess electricity and power-to-gas storage potential in the future renewable-based power generation sector in the United Arab Emirates," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 426-450.
    13. Giwa, Adewale & Adeyemi, Idowu & Dindi, Abdallah & Lopez, Celia García-Baños & Lopresto, Catia Giovanna & Curcio, Stefano & Chakraborty, Sudip, 2018. "Techno-economic assessment of the sustainability of an integrated biorefinery from microalgae and Jatropha: A review and case study," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 239-257.
    14. Oliver Wagner & Thomas Adisorn & Lena Tholen & Dagmar Kiyar, 2020. "Surviving the Energy Transition: Development of a Proposal for Evaluating Sustainable Business Models for Incumbents in Germany’s Electricity Market," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-17, February.
    15. d'Amore-Domenech, Rafael & Leo, Teresa J. & Pollet, Bruno G., 2021. "Bulk power transmission at sea: Life cycle cost comparison of electricity and hydrogen as energy vectors," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    16. Kolb, Sebastian & Plankenbühler, Thomas & Frank, Jonas & Dettelbacher, Johannes & Ludwig, Ralf & Karl, Jürgen & Dillig, Marius, 2021. "Scenarios for the integration of renewable gases into the German natural gas market – A simulation-based optimisation approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    17. Trowell, K.A. & Goroshin, S. & Frost, D.L. & Bergthorson, J.M., 2020. "Aluminum and its role as a recyclable, sustainable carrier of renewable energy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    18. Sara Bellocchi & Michele Manno & Michel Noussan & Michela Vellini, 2019. "Impact of Grid-Scale Electricity Storage and Electric Vehicles on Renewable Energy Penetration: A Case Study for Italy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-32, April.
    19. Mikovits, Christian & Wetterlund, Elisabeth & Wehrle, Sebastian & Baumgartner, Johann & Schmidt, Johannes, 2021. "Stronger together: Multi-annual variability of hydrogen production supported by wind power in Sweden," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(PB).
    20. Gorre, Jachin & Ortloff, Felix & van Leeuwen, Charlotte, 2019. "Production costs for synthetic methane in 2030 and 2050 of an optimized Power-to-Gas plant with intermediate hydrogen storage," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 253(C), pages 1-1.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:7:p:2440-:d:780146. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.