Taking off With Furfural: The Missing Link in the Production of High-Performance Bio Jet Fuel
Rick Baldenhofer is a PhD candidate in the group of Sustainable Process Technology. His (co)promotors are prof.dr. S.R.A. Kersten; dr. M.P. Ruiz Ramiro and prof.dr. J.P. Lange from the faculty Science & Technology.
Since the industrial revolution, greenhouse gas emissions have increased significantly, primarily due to the widespread use of fossil fuels. This has been a major driver of global climate change, resulting in serious environmental and societal challenges. Aviation is a notable contributor to these emissions and is widely recognized as a sector that is particularly difficult to de-fossilize. As a critical component of global transportation, the sector remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Due to stringent performance requirements, alternatives such as electric or hydrogen-powered aircraft are not (yet) viable for large-scale, long-haul aviation. As a result, Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) have emerged as a promising solution. SAF are similar to conventional fossil derived hydrocarbons, but are produced through more sustainable methods and feedstocks. They offer a key advantage: compatibility with existing aircraft and fuelling infrastructure.
One promising feedstock for SAF production is furfural, a biobased platform chemical that can be derived from hemicellulosic biomass, one of the most abundant sources of biomass on earth. While various furfural upgrading routes to SAF have been described in the literature, they tend to produce acyclic products with relatively low energy density. This limits their efficiency in jet engines, which benefit from fuels with high volumetric and gravimetric energy content.
In this thesis, an alternative pathway for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production is explored. This route is based on furfural and offers a potential alternative to existing methods such as Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids (HEFA) and Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ). The proposed approach focuses on upgrading furfural to cyclopentanone (CPO), followed by aldol condensation with additional furfural to form C10 and C15 alkyl-substituted cycloalkanes. These cyclic hydrocarbons offer higher energy density and improved combustion properties, making them well-suited for aviation applications. This work demonstrates that biomass-derived furfural can serve as a viable feedstock for advanced jet fuel components, and shows that furfural-based SAF is not merely an alternative, but potentially a strong competitor to existing SAF technologies.
