Renewable bio-jet fuel production for aviation: A review

Due to excessive greenhouse gas emissions and high dependence on traditional petroleum jet fuel, the sustainable development of the aviation industry has drawn increasing attention worldwide. One of the most promising strategies is to develop and industrialize alternative aviation fuels produced from renewable resources, e.g. biomass. Renewable bio-jet fuel has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions over their life cycle, which make bio-jet fuels an attractive substitution for aviation fuels. This paper provided an overview on the conversion technologies, economic assessment, environmental influence and development status of bio-jet fuels. The results suggested that hydrogenated esters and fatty acids, and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis can be the most promising technologies for bio-jet fuels production in near term. Future works, such as searching for more suitable feedstock, improving competitiveness for alternative jet fuels, meeting emission reduction targets in large-scale production and making measures for the indirect impact are needed for further investigation. The large-scale deployment of bio-jet fuels could achieve significant potentials of both bio-jet fuels production and CO2 emissions reduction based on future available biomass feedstock.