Using Plants Instead of Petroleum to Make Jet Fuel

From Scientific American Mind:

Chemical engineers in North Dakota have successfully turned oil from plants—canola (rapeseed), coconuts and soybeans—into jet fuel indistinguishable from the conventional kind, according to U.S. government tests. Working with the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), scientists at the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota turned these plant oils into fuel that had a similar density, energy content and even freezing point.

"It's got a freeze point of –47 degrees Celsius (–52.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Anyone familiar with biodiesel can tell you that's no small feat," says chemical engineer Chad Wocken, EERC environmental technologies research manager. "It's processed so that it contains only the same hydrocarbon molecules present in petroleum fuel."

Although he declined to explain the exact details of the process, Wocken says it is thermocatalytic—in other words, the engineers heat the plant oils in the presence of an undisclosed catalyst to create a slew of petroleum products. In fact, the process is not unlike conventional oil refining in that it produces everything from the kerosene used as aviation fuel to regular gasoline.

"The processing costs would be similar and comparable to petroleum oil refining," and perhaps even less expensive, Wocken notes, "because you're not dealing with contaminants like sulfur."

Virgin Atlantic has flown a jumbo jet on a combination of conventional jet fuel and biofuel made from palm oil, and a jet powered solely by biodiesel has stayed aloft for more than 30 minutes—albeit with a special device to keep its fuel from freezing at high altitude.