The aviation industry has been a severe contributor in climate change and hence airlines have been looking at ways to reduce traditional fuel source and go the bio fuel way in order to reduce carbon footprint.
Plane manufacturing company Boeing recently said that it will begin delivering commercial airplanes capable of flying on 100% biofuel by the end of the decade, calling reducing environmental damage from fossil fuels the ‘challenge of our lifetime.’
Now researchers have found a way to convert food waste into biofuel, which will help to reduce the carbon footprint of jet fuel by 165 percent.
According to data, aviation contributes to almost 2.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Battery-run jets are not an option so far as experts say that the proper balance required between power and weight to keep a airplane on air is yet not achievable.
Currently, the oils and waste fats are converted into bio diesel for heavy goods vehicles but researchers in the US have ben able to now turn the waste into a kind of paraffin that works for jet engines.
Through this, food waste, animal manure and waste water, which is usually turned into methane gas, is now producing volatile fatty acids (VFA) instead of methane.
Through a catalytic process, two different kind of paraffin is produced which when blended together, 70 percent of that mixture with regular jet fuel meets the regular jet fuel standard.
This method is expected to cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 165% as compared to fossil energy. The team says now they want to widen the scope for the production of the new fuel and also plan to test flights with Southwest Airlines in 2023.
The study was published in in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).