Evaluation of Blending of Lowest Emission Biodiesel with Jet A for Producing Aviation Biofuels

Abstract

Today, a huge volume of jet fuel is consumed through air transportation. Petroleum-based jet fuels, including Jet A-1, produce considerable amount of particulate and gaseous pollutions which affect the world climate change. To overcome these pollutions, portion of jet fuel should be replaced by jet biofuels. This can be achieved by blending Jet A with efficient energy source with lowest emission such as biofuels from vegetable oils. Biodiesel from palm, Jatropha curcas, and waste cooking oils show promising potential in producing aviation biofuels when blending with Jet A. Various volumetric ratios of biodiesel (5–25%) were blended with high-grade kerosene. The binary blends of jet biofuels were characterized and compared with Jet A fuels. The comparison indicated that biofuels with 5% ester content have almost similar characteristics with Jet A aviation. The physicochemical properties of 5% binary blends of palm, Jatropha curcas, and waste cooking oils were kinematic viscosity (at −20 °C) of 8.6, 5.1, and 5.1; high heating value (HHV) around 43 Mj/kg and freezing point of −14.5, −15.5, and −25.5 °C for binary blends of the biodiesel from the three types of oils with Jet A, respectively. Additives may be added to binary blends to reach exact Jet A physicochemical characteristics. The yield %│C8–C15 were determined for the 5% ester content for each binary blends using GC-mass spectrometry.