(134c) Modeling and Analysis of Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production Pathways

As the aviation industry confronts the pressing need to mitigate its environmental footprint, pathways for the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) have gained paramount importance. Currently, there are 7 broad categories of SAF production specified in ASTM D7566 Annexes: A1) Fischer-Tropsch synthetic paraffinic kerosene (FT-SPK), A2) hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA-SPK), A3) hydroprocessed fermented sugars synthetic iso-paraffins (HFS-SIP), A4) FT-SPK with aromatics (FT-SPK/A), A5) alcohol-to-jet (ATJ-SPK), A6) catalytic hydrothermolysis jet (CHJ), and A7) hydrocarbon-hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HC-HEFA-SPK). This presentation aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the technological approaches and environmental implications for the ASTM-approved pathways to produce SAF via models in Aspen Plus and HYSYS. The documentation and simulation files for the models are available on the Aspentech website.¹ Each of the pathways can be modeled with detailed reaction, thermodynamic, and process considerations to set up material and energy balances needed to determine the economic and environmental costs. Reduced-order hybrid representations of these detailed models can serve as options in a superstructure optimization problem, where these costs, along with blending limitations and governmental mandates, can help drive sustainability decisions in the aviation sector.

[1] Aspentech Sustainability Library: https://www.aspentech.com/en/insights/models/sustainability-models