Sustainable bio kerosene: Process routes and industrial demonstration activities in aviation biofuels

In this context, the ITAKA group is developing a full value-chain in Europe to produce sustainable drop-in Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (SPK) - called HEFA - in an economically, socially and environmentally sound manner, at large scale enough to allow testing its use in existing logistic systems and in normal flight operations in Europe. The generated knowledge will aim to identify and address barriers to innovation. Within ITAKA, possible pre-processing of used (waste) cooking oil (UCO) to make it compatible with current downstream hydroprocessing techniques are being investigated: this can includes esterification of waste oils, as well as catalytic thermal processing, which will be carried out in a pilot unit available at RE-CORD/CREAR. First samples of feedstock oils were collected and characterized, for further investigation towards their conversion into biokerosene through hydrotreatment.