Make eco-friendly aviation oil from discarded and inedible plant ingredients

[Anchor]
Korean researchers have developed aviation oil using discarded or inedible plant raw materials such as grass and waste wood.

It is expected to emerge as an eco-friendly alternative to the aviation industry as it has the most similar ingredient to petroleum aviation oil and can reduce carbon emissions by up to 80%.

This is reporter Park Na-yeon.

[Reporter]
Airports to and from Incheon to Haneda have special aviation oil.

Existing petroleum aviation oil contains 1% of "sustainable aviation oil" made of cooking oil and palm oil.

Airplanes emit 20 times more carbon emissions per passenger than trains at the same distance, and just 1% of sustainable aviation oil can significantly reduce carbon emissions.

As greenhouse gas reduction was also implemented in the aviation sector in 2027, the domestic aviation industry began commercial operations of eco-friendly aviation oil starting with Korean Air in August.

The problem is that sustainable aviation oil is two to three times more expensive than petroleum aviation oil, and it is difficult to secure large quantities using food resources.

Korean researchers have succeeded in making sustainable aviation oil from discarded and inedible plant raw materials such as grass and waste wood.

[Yu Jin-ah / KIST Clean Energy Research Center Student Researcher (first author): (Previous studies) were based on vegetable oils such as cooking oil, palm oil, and soybean oil, which can cause problems with the supply of raw materials. We focused on waste wood-based biomass.]

Existing sustainable aviation oil could only replace some of the 47% components of petroleum aviation oil, limiting its use in combination with oil.

In response, the researchers created a new sustainable aviation oil containing the remaining 53% of high-energy ingredients such as naphthene and aromatic from oil obtained by decomposing trees and grass.

This can replace aviation oil by 100% without the need for oil mixing, reducing carbon emissions by up to 80%.

In addition, it has succeeded in continuously operating the aviation oil production process for more than 100 hours, confirming the possibility of mass production.

[Yoo Jin-jae / Senior Researcher at KIST Clean Energy Research Center: If this study becomes practical, I think we can replace certain parts of the general aviation oil with the aviation oil we developed]

The researchers plan to continue further research, such as demonstrating the continuous driving technology currently secured at the pilot scale.

Based on the results of this study, it is expected that the progress of carbon neutrality in the aviation field, which has been slow, will accelerate little by little.

I'm Park Nayeon of YTN Science.


Video coverage: Kim Young-hwan