Multi-criteria decision analysis for the evaluation and screening of sustainable aviation fuel production pathways

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The aviation sector, a significant greenhouse gas emitter, must lower its emissions to alleviate the climate change impact. Decarbonization can be achieved by converting low-carbon feedstock to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). This study reviews SAF production pathways like hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA), gasification and Fischer–Tropsch Process (GFT), Alcohol to Jet (ATJ), direct sugar to hydrocarbon (DSHC), and fast pyrolysis (FP). Each pathway’s advantages, limitations, cost-effectiveness, and environmental impact are detailed, with reaction pathways, feedstock, and catalyst requirements. A multi-criteria decision framework (MCDS) was used to rank the most promising SAF production pathways. The results show the performance ranking order as HEFA > DSHC > FP > ATJ > GFT, assuming equal weight for all criteria.

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Biomass; Energy sustainability

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Heterogeneous Catalyst Deactivation and Regeneration: A Review

Morris Argyle, Calvin Bartholomew (2015)

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Aviation and global climate change in the 21st century

David S. C. Lee, David W Fahey, Piers M Forster … (2009)

Aviation emissions contribute to the radiative forcing (RF) of climate. Of importance are emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NO x ), aerosols and their precursors (soot and sulphate), and increased cloudiness in the form of persistent linear contrails and induced-cirrus cloudiness. The recent Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) quantified aviation's RF contribution for 2005 based upon 2000 operations data. Aviation has grown strongly over the past years, despite world-changing events in the early 2000s; the average annual passenger traffic growth rate was 5.3% yr−1 between 2000 and 2007, resulting in an increase of passenger traffic of 38%. Presented here are updated values of aviation RF for 2005 based upon new operations data that show an increase in traffic of 22.5%, fuel use of 8.4% and total aviation RF of 14% (excluding induced-cirrus enhancement) over the period 2000–2005. The lack of physical process models and adequate observational data for aviation-induced cirrus effects limit confidence in quantifying their RF contribution. Total aviation RF (excluding induced cirrus) in 2005 was ∼55 mW m−2 (23–87 mW m−2, 90% likelihood range), which was 3.5% (range 1.3–10%, 90% likelihood range) of total anthropogenic forcing. Including estimates for aviation-induced cirrus RF increases the total aviation RF in 2005–78 mW m−2 (38–139 mW m−2, 90% likelihood range), which represents 4.9% of total anthropogenic forcing (2–14%, 90% likelihood range). Future scenarios of aviation emissions for 2050 that are consistent with IPCC SRES A1 and B2 scenario assumptions have been presented that show an increase of fuel usage by factors of 2.7–3.9 over 2000. Simplified calculations of total aviation RF in 2050 indicate increases by factors of 3.0–4.0 over the 2000 value, representing 4–4.7% of total RF (excluding induced cirrus). An examination of a range of future technological options shows that substantive reductions in aviation fuel usage are possible only with the introduction of radical technologies. Incorporation of aviation into an emissions trading system offers the potential for overall (i.e., beyond the aviation sector) CO2 emissions reductions. Proposals exist for introduction of such a system at a European level, but no agreement has been reached at a global level.

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The contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 2018

D.S. Lee, D.W. Fahey, A. Skowron … (2020)

Global aviation operations contribute to anthropogenic climate change via a complex set of processes that lead to a net surface warming. Of importance are aviation emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), water vapor, soot and sulfate aerosols, and increased cloudiness due to contrail formation. Aviation grew strongly over the past decades (1960–2018) in terms of activity, with revenue passenger kilometers increasing from 109 to 8269 billion km yr−1, and in terms of climate change impacts, with CO2 emissions increasing by a factor of 6.8–1034 Tg CO2 yr−1. Over the period 2013–2018, the growth rates in both terms show a marked increase. Here, we present a new comprehensive and quantitative approach for evaluating aviation climate forcing terms. Both radiative forcing (RF) and effective radiative forcing (ERF) terms and their sums are calculated for the years 2000–2018. Contrail cirrus, consisting of linear contrails and the cirrus cloudiness arising from them, yields the largest positive net (warming) ERF term followed by CO2 and NOx emissions. The formation and emission of sulfate aerosol yields a negative (cooling) term. The mean contrail cirrus ERF/RF ratio of 0.42 indicates that contrail cirrus is less effective in surface warming than other terms. For 2018 the net aviation ERF is +100.9 mW (mW) m−2 (5–95% likelihood range of (55, 145)) with major contributions from contrail cirrus (57.4 mW m−2), CO2 (34.3 mW m−2), and NOx (17.5 mW m−2). Non-CO2 terms sum to yield a net positive (warming) ERF that accounts for more than half (66%) of the aviation net ERF in 2018. Using normalization to aviation fuel use, the contribution of global aviation in 2011 was calculated to be 3.5 (4.0, 3.4) % of the net anthropogenic ERF of 2290 (1130, 3330) mW m−2. Uncertainty distributions (5%, 95%) show that non-CO2 forcing terms contribute about 8 times more than CO2 to the uncertainty in the aviation net ERF in 2018. The best estimates of the ERFs from aviation aerosol-cloud interactions for soot and sulfate remain undetermined. CO2-warming-equivalent emissions based on global warming potentials (GWP* method) indicate that aviation emissions are currently warming the climate at approximately three times the rate of that associated with aviation CO2 emissions alone. CO2 and NOx aviation emissions and cloud effects remain a continued focus of anthropogenic climate change research and policy discussions.

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Jude A. Okolie

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): iScience

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): iScience

Title: iScience

Publisher: Elsevier

ISSN (Electronic): 2589-0042

Publication date PMC-release: 24 May 2023

Publication date Collection: 16 June 2023

Publication date (Electronic): 24 May 2023

Volume: 26

Issue: 6

Electronic Location Identifier: 106944

Affiliations

[1 ]Gallogly College of Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

[2 ]Department of Chemical Engineering, University of llorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria

[3 ]Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

[4 ]Instituto de Energías Renovables (IER-UNAM), Privada Xochicalco s/n Col. Centro, Temixco, Morelos 62580, México

[5 ]School of Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, UK

[6 ]Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences, Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria

[7 ]Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences, Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria

[8 ]Low Carbon Energy and Resources Technologies Research Group, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK

[9 ]Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

Author notes

[∗ ]Corresponding author jude.okolie@ 123456usask.ca

Article

Publisher Item ID: S2589-0042(23)01021-0 Publisher ID: 106944

DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106944

PMC ID: 10276035

SO-VID: 5ef650e4-745f-42e8-aa2c-e3aca39aa9ed

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This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Multi-criteria decision analysis for the evaluation and screening of sustainable aviation fuel production pathways

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Climate Change: Open Access

Most cited references 91

Heterogeneous Catalyst Deactivation and Regeneration: A Review

Aviation and global climate change in the 21st century

The contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 2018

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