A modern-day miracle turns water into carbon-neutral jet fuel

A modern-day miracle that has turned water into carbon-neutral jet fuel mimicking one of the greatest miracles of all time, could revolutionise air travel.

A report by Aldo Steinfeld, a Professor from ETH Zurich published on Wednesday, July 27 says that a carbon-neutral synthesis of kerosene, or jet fuel, has been produced by scientists who combined sunlight with water.

More than five per cent of human emissions are generated through the aviation industry, with no alternative currently available or in the pipeline.

Scientists used the 169 sun-tracking reflective panels at the IMDEA Energy Institute in Madrid. These redirect and concentrate solar radiation into a solar reactor, which using a porous structure converts water and carbon dioxide injected into the reactor into syngas.

Syngas is made of hydrogen and carbon monoxide and can be converted into liquid hydrocarbon fuels that include kerosene and diesel, by being processed through a gas-to-liquid converter.  

Steinfeld says that: “The amount of CO2 emitted during kerosene combustion in a jet engine equals that consumed during its production in the solar plant.

“That makes the fuel carbon neutral, especially if we use CO2 captured directly from the air as an ingredient, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.”

 “With our solar technology, we have shown that we can produce synthetic kerosene from water and CO2 instead of deriving it from fossil fuels.”

Steinfeld’s team, the first to demonstrate the entire thermochemical process chain from water to kerosene, said that solar-made kerosene, or jet fuel, is fully compatible with the existing way fuel is stored, distributed, and used in a plane’s engine.

But perhaps more importantly this modern-day miracle allows the fuel to be blended with fossil-derived kerosene, widening its applications.

With the team having proven the process works, the next step is to improve the efficiency sufficiently to make it a commercially viable proposition. That includes exploring ways to optimise the porous structure for absorbing solar radiation and developing methods to recover the heat released during the redox cycles.

Steinfeld concluded by saying: “This solar tower fuel plant was operated with a setup relevant to industrial implementation, setting a technological milestone towards the production of sustainable aviation fuels.”

With the price of fossil fuels at an all-time high, the modern-day miracle that turns water into carbon-neutral jet fuel will be welcomed and watched with great interest by everyone from governments to the airline industry.

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