Air New Zealand and Boeing have set Dec. 3 as the date for the first flight test of a sustainable bio-derived replacement for jet fuel.

The flight from Auckland will involve a Rolls-Royce-powered 747-400.

One of the 747’s four RB211 turbofans will burn a 50:50 blend of conventional jet fuel and a bio-jet fuel derived from jatropha, using a process developed by Honeywell company UOP.

Virgin Atlantic Airways conducted the first airline demonstration flight in February using a 20% blend of a first-generation biofuel in one engine on a General Electric CF6-80C2-powered 747-400.

But Boeing says the Air NZ flight will be the first to use a biofuel that is commercially viable, sustainably sourced and meets or exceeds the performance requirements for a drop-in replacement for conventional jet fuel.

The Air NZ trial has required the first large-scale production run of any drop-in biofuel meeting the existing jet-fuel specification, says Darrin Morgan, Boeing director, business analysis, for environmental strategy.

“It’s been done at laboratory scale for DARPA [the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency], but this is the first large-scale run with any process,” he says. UOP’s Jennifer Holmgren says, “Thousands of gallons” were produced.

A “large sample” was provided to Rolls-Royce for testing to ensure the jatropha-based biofuel meets the international ASTM specification for jet fuel. Energy density and freeze point are both better than for conventional jet fuel, Morgan says.

A key requirement was to verify the biofuel can be sourced sustainably. For this, Boeing, Air NZ and UOP worked with project developer Terasol Energy to identify sources in Africa and India that could produce jatropha oil in sufficient quantities while meeting sustainability requirements for socio-economic impact and use of non-arable land.

“In preparation for Air New Zealand’s test flight we achieved our near-term goal — identifying and sourcing the first large-scale run of sustainable biofuel for commercial aviation,” says Billy Glover, Boeing’s managing director of environmental strategy.

Boeing hopes the Air NZ flight, and others planned next year by Japan Airlines and Continental, will persuade government to make funding and incentives available for further research and development of commercial-scale production of bio-jet fuel.

Morgan believes that the first airlines could begin using biofuels within three to five years and that a viable market for sustainable biofuels could be in place by 2015, with several fuel producers and airline users. “At that point it becomes real,” he says.

Photo: Arpingstone via Wikipedia