Potential Integrated Pathways for Jet Biofuel Production from Whole Fruit of Jatropha

Abstract

Civil Aviation is responsible for nearly 5 % of total radiative forcing of climate and 2.5 % of annual global CO 2 emissions, while the demand on Jet fuel is rising rapidly. As such, Jet Biofuel (JBF) has been recognised by the aviation industry as the best option to mitigate its carbon footprint. In this regard, Jatropha curcas has proved to be a promising biomass for JBF production due to its unique competences over other energy crops. Not only can its oil be converted into high performance fuels, but also its fruit residues are considered a valuable source for multiple energy carriers. However, Jatropha is not yet fully utilized in the Jet Biofuel industry. Therefore, this study presents three novel integrated systems that utilize all parts of the Jatropha fruit to produce JBF. These systems integrate the conventional hydroprocess along with one of three thermochemical processes including gasification, pyrolysis and hydrothermal liquefaction. Aspen Plus® is used to develop the systems and investigate the optimum amongst them based on Jet Biofuel yield. All the three systems resulted in significant increments in the JBF yield. While, the hydroprocess-gasification system demonstrated promising results; whereby, 65 wt.% of the Jatropha whole-fruit is converted into green liquid fuels with 57 % Jet Biofuel selectivity. The results indicate over a 90 % increment in JBF yield as compared to the utilization of Jatropha oil alone in the best reported scenarios.