‘Clean’ fuel for planes attracts Raízen and Petrobras – 02/23/2024 – Market

While research laboratories validate processes for the start of production of SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) on an industrial scale in the country, companies in the energy and oil sector are moving to supply the raw material, manufacture or distribute the fuel in the coming years.

One of the ways to decarbonize the sector, SAF pollutes up to 80% less than the kerosene traditionally used by airlines. However, it is still expensive and has insufficient volumes to meet all demand.

Mateus Lopes, director of energy transition and investments at Raízen, says that the company is following the evolution of the segment in Brazil and Europe.

Last year, Raízen announced that it had won a certificate issued by Oaci (International Civil Aviation Organization), attesting that the company’s ethanol, produced at the Costa Pinto bioenergy park, in Piracicaba (SP), meets the requirements to be used in SAF production.

According to the ANP (National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels), SAF can be produced from various sources, such as biomass (in the case of ethanol), vegetable oils, animal fat, waste gases, among others.

According to Lopes, certification was the first step towards entering the market.

“We are following it. Today, in practice, even if Raízen wanted to [produzir SAF]does not have a validated industrial-scale technology”, he states.

“In terms of logistics and emissions reduction potential, it makes a lot of sense for us to produce this aviation fuel locally and export it instead of selling first or second generation ethanol to the United States or Europe,” he says.

Petrobras plans to complete, after 2028, the installation of units dedicated to the production of aviation biokerosene and renewable diesel at RPBC (Presidente Bernardes Refinery), in Cubatão (SP), and at Gaslub, formerly Comperj (Rio de Janeiro Petrochemical Complex ).

In December, the state-owned company announced a contract with petrochemical company Honeywell UOP to acquire technology capable of producing aviation biokerosene and renewable diesel using soybean oil and beef tallow as raw materials.

The distributor Vibra (formerly BR), in turn, has a signed agreement to sell the SAF that will be produced by BBF (Brasil BioFuels), a company in the energy and biofuels sector.

BBF’s fuel will be made from palm oil, also known as dendê, grown by the company in the Amazon region. The company plans to invest more than R$2.2 billion to open a biorefinery in Manaus that should start producing SAF and green diesel from 2026.

According to Iata (International Air Transport Association), in 2023, the volume of SAF produced in the world had surpassed the level of 600 million liters — double that recorded in the previous year.

The number, however, corresponded to just 0.2% of global aviation fuel use by the industry.

In Brazil, there is still no production of SAF on a commercial scale, according to the ANP. The manufacture of the fuel is the responsibility of smaller projects at universities, companies or research institutions.

While SAF production is low, the price of sustainable fuel, according to the sector, is around three times higher than the value of QAV (aviation kerosene), already used by companies and which pollutes more.

In September, ISI-ER (Senai Institute for Innovation in Renewable Energy) opened the Hydrogen and Advanced Fuels Laboratory, also called H2CA, in Natal. There SAF is made from glycerin and also using carbon dioxide captured from the air and hydrogen.

According to Rodrigo Diniz, director of Senai-RN, the process for producing the fuel — called the technological route — used in the laboratory should be available for use in industry, on a commercial scale, in the second half of this year.

The path chosen by H2CA is called “fischer-tropsch” — one of the seven processes for the production of SAF foreseen by the ANP. In it, a chemical process transforms the hydrogen and carbon monoxide obtained from the raw material into synthetic oil —without fossil origin—, from which SAF is extracted.

Per day, the laboratory produces five liters of synthetic oil. Of this volume, almost 70% gives rise to “clean” aviation fuel.

“This consumes a lot of energy and needs a storage structure. We, in the laboratory, try to produce the smallest amount possible that validates the industrial scale”, says Diniz.

CIBiogás (International Center for Renewable Energy), in Paraná, has a project to produce synthetic oil through biogas, which comes from organic waste. The refining, to obtain the SAF, will be carried out by UFPR (Federal University of Paraná).

According to the director of technological development at CIBiogás, Felipe Marques, the objective is to establish biogas as a raw material for the production of renewable fuels, especially SAF. Currently, the project is training the team to start operations.

The institutions responsible for the projects in Paraná and Rio Grande do Norte are looking for partners interested in using the methodology developed in the laboratories.

The use of SAF is one of aviation’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a time when the sector awaits the vote on the bill in the National Congress that deals with the use of sustainable fuels. The urgency of the project was approved in December in the Chamber.

Among the measures defined by the project is the creation of ProBioQAV (National Sustainable Aviation Fuel Program), which obliges airlines to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on domestic flights through the use of aviation biokerosene, also known as SAF.

The bill, presented by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), wants to encourage the use of biofuel by creating a schedule for the gradual reduction of emissions by airlines: in 2027, the goal is to reduce emissions by 1%; in 2037, it will reach 10%.