Methanol-to-Jet
Methanol-to-jet fuel process development
Project area
Resource procurement (Input)
Fuel production
Refining and upgrading
Storage
Transport
Distribution
Utilisation
Post-treatment and recycling
Safety and standardisation
Systems integration / sector coupling
Community work and stakeholder involvement
Structural frameworks, regulation, and markets
All projects in the MissionGreenFuels project portfolio contribute to the green transition across the green fuels value chain and cross-cutting themes. The highlighted icons indicate the area this project contributes to. Click on the icons to lean more.
Project description
Aviation is considered to be one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise, due to the high requirements to volumetric and gravimetric energy density of the fuels used. Besides biofuels, the possible pathways for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) include direct electrification using batteries, pure renewable hydrogen, and e-kerosene, as well as hybrid solutions.
Due to relatively low energy density of batteries, direct electrification of long-haul aviation is not considered feasible in the mid-term. Neither is the use of airplanes powered by gas turbines burning pure renewable hydrogen given the 25+ years investment cycle of commercial aircrafts. Therefore, e-kerosene is likely to become the main pathway for SAF production in the medium-to-long term. The Methanol-to-Jet process development project aims to develop the Methanol technology pathway for production of e-kerosene.
Project facts
Project start
August 2022
Project status
Funding pool
Inflection point
Value chain and theme
Project objectives
The objective of Methanol-to-jet project is to develop the Methanol-to-Jet fuel pathway to produce aviation fuel to a level of maturity where the pathway is developed to TRL of 5-6. This will:
Create a solid design base for subsequent design to the industrially relevant scale
Enable the project to create a strategy for and commence ASTM certification of the Methanol-to-jet pathway for use of the fuel in commercial aviation
Create sufficient certainty about the process to determine competitiveness against alternative SAF pathways
Make it possible to plan and optimize the future integration of Methanol-to-jet plants with the energy system
Project partners
Impact & outcome
The project expects to decrease the time-to-market of a certified Methanol-to-Jet process so that it can be available for SAF production at the earliest possible date to complement existing SAF pathways and to contribute to a fast and economic transformation of aviation fuel consumption away from fossil fuels. The project further expects to establish a tangible view on the competitiveness of the Methanol-to-Jet pathway versus alternative SAF pathways, and a view on optimal integration with the surrounding energy system. Moreover, the project will contribute to domestic Danish aviation decarbonization targets and the EU regulation, ReFuelEU Aviation, which aims towards increasing the uptake of sustainable fuels in aviation.
Click to enlarge project poster to learn more about the project.
Renewable Aviation e-SAF Catalogue and System Impacts
Authors: Iva Ridjan Skov and Hamza Abid.
Click here to read the article