JAL Conducts Successful Test Flight With Drop-in Biofuel Derived Primarily from Camelina
30 January 2009
Japan Airlines (JAL) became the first airline to conduct a demonstration flight using a biofuel primarily refined from the energy crop camelina. (Earlier post.) It was also the first demo flight using a combination of three sustainable biofuel feedstocks—camelina (84%), jatropha (less than 16%), and algae (less than 1%)—as well as the first one using Pratt & Whitney engines.
“We have proven that we can produce renewable jet fuel from sustainable resources that is a drop-in replacement eliminating the need for costly changes to the fuels infrastructure and transportation fleet. This technology can be utilized to begin making an impact on the aviation fuel supply in as little as three years.” —Jennifer Holmgren, General Manager of UOP Renewable Energy and Chemical |
The approximately one and half-hour demo flight using a JAL-owned Boeing 747-300 aircraft, carrying no passengers or payload, took off from Haneda Airport, Tokyo at 11:50am (JST). A blend of 50% biofuel (synthetic paraffinic kerosene, SPK) and 50% traditional Jet-A jet (kerosene) fuel was tested in the No.3 engine (middle right), one of the aircraft’s four Pratt & Whitney JT9D engines. No modifications to the aircraft or engine were required for biofuel, which is a drop-in replacement for petroleum-based fuel.
The JAL cockpit crew onboard the aircraft checked the engine’s performance during normal and non-normal flight operations, which included quick accelerations and decelerations, and engine shutdown and restart. A ground-based preflight test was conducted the day before the flight to ensure that the No. 3 engine functioned normally using the biofuel/traditional Jet-A fuel blend.
Data recorded on the aircraft will now be analyzed to determine if equivalent engine performance was seen from the biofuel blend compared to typical Jet A fuel. The initial analysis of the data will take several weeks and will be conducted by team members from Boeing, Japan Airlines, and Pratt & Whitney.
The fuel for the JAL demo flight was successfully converted from plant-based crude oil to SPK, then blended with typical jet fuel by Honeywell’s UOP, a refining technology developer, using proprietary hydro-processing technology. Subsequent laboratory testing by Boeing, UOP, and several independent laboratories verified the biofuel met the industry criteria for jet fuel performance.
Sustainable Oils, Inc. sourced the camelina used in the JAL demo flight. Terasol Energy sourced and provided the jatropha oil, and the algae oil was provided by Sapphire Energy. Nikki Universal, a joint venture of UOP and JGC, supplied the biofuel used in the flight, which had been produced in the US by UOP.
Also known as gold-of-pleasure or false flax, camelina is good candidate for a sustainable biofuel source, given its high oil content and ability to grow in rotation with wheat and other cereal crops. The crop is mostly grown in more moderate climates such as the northern plains of the US and Canada, and originally hails from northern Europe and Central Asia. Test plots are also underway in Malaysia, South Korea, Ukraine and Latvia.
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