Properties of Selected Alternative Petroleum Fractions and Sustainable Aviation Fuels

Abstract

With regard to speed, comfort, and a dense network of destinations, the popularity of air transport is on the rise. For this reason, jet fuel is a commodity with rapidly growing consumption and interesting refinery margins. At the same time, however, it is becoming a focus of attention in terms of reducing negative environmental impacts. As a response to these trends, it will be necessary to coprocess alternative petroleum fractions with sustainable aviation components in oil refineries. Six alternative jet fuel samples of different origin were used to investigate their jet fuel-specific properties, that is, aromatics (from 0 to 59.7 vol%), smoke point (from 12.2 to >50 mm), freezing point (from −49 to <−80 °C) and net specific energy (41.2–43.7 MJ·kg−1), and these properties were compared to standard hydrotreated straight-run Jet A-1 kerosene. The properties of the components studied differed significantly with respect to each other and to the requirements of Jet A-1. Nevertheless, the properties could be well correlated. This provides an opportunity to study possible synergies in blending these components. It was also found that the current methods and instruments used do not always allow a precise determination of the smoke point (>50 mm) and freezing point (<80 °C).