Jordan Huang, Jasmine Martinez, Basil Rohlfs, Nasrullah Shakil, Gabriel Vela and Justin Woodhall
- Community Partner: Solaris Management Consultants Inc.
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Applied Science
- Program:
- Campus: Vancouver
Our project
The aviation industry accounts for 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions – a figure that’s expected to rise to 7.5% by 2050 – sparking significant interest in developing lower-carbon or non-carbon fuels. We partnered with Solaris MCI to investigate the technical, environmental and economic feasibility of making sustainable aviation fuel from captured carbon dioxide, the very molecule responsible for warming our atmosphere.
Our design solution
Our process is designed to convert over 450,000 tonnes of captured carbon dioxide and over 66,000 tonnes of green hydrogen into 100 million litres (or 89,000 tonnes) of sustainable aviation fuel each year. The plant would be strategically located on Iona Island in Richmond, BC, near Vancouver International Airport.
There are several pathways for producing sustainable aviation fuel. We selected the methanol-to-jet pathway because it allows us to start with captured carbon dioxide rather than fossil-fuel-derived feedstocks and provides an alternative to the classic Fischer-Tropsch process.
Designed in four stages, the process begins with carbon dioxide captured from a point source and green hydrogen produced through onsite electrolysis.
These feedstocks go through four major stages: methanol synthesis, conversion of methanol to olefins, oligomerization to connect olefins into longer carbon chains, and then hydrogenation to form single-bonded carbon chains. We then blend our product with additives to meet ASTM standards for Jet-A1 grade fuel.
When designing our process, we focused on atom economy. Since captured carbon dioxide is expensive, we went straight to methanol synthesis rather than first converting to syngas, as is typical in conventional methanol production.
This meant we could maximize the amount of carbon dioxide converted into our desired intermediate product and recycle the unreacted carbon dioxide back into the process. Our carbon intensity of 8.93 gCO2e/MJ compares favourably to conventional alternative jet fuel at 24.7 gCO2e/MJ.
The technical challenges we faced
The methanol-to-jet pathway is complex, and there is limited literature on full-scale integrated processes. While the individual components of our process are well studied, the integration of each component within this pathway is novel. In fact, the methanol-to-jet pathway is not yet certified for use in aircraft, but certain companies are beginning the certification process.
We originally divided the project into two areas of focus: one group focused on the methanol synthesis and methanol-to-olefins sections, while the other focused on the oligomerization and hydrogenation sections.
Because of this approach and given the size and complexity of the project, we encountered many situations where we had to make changes to the upstream process. This cascaded to significant effects in downstream processes. This was a challenge because it forced the group working downstream to adjust based on the revisions outside of their process sections.
To tackle this, we decided to have everyone examine and finalize the upstream sections before moving downstream to prevent the need to repeatedly make process changes.
Going into the project, we knew that it would be immensely difficult and inefficient to synthesize a long carbon chain from a single carbon molecule. Our plant can produce about 89,000 tonnes of jet fuel annually, which is enough fuel to power three Boeing 747 jumbo jets for a year. However, in absolute terms, this is a drop of water in the ocean compared to global aviation demand.
We also realized early on that this would not be an economical process, primarily because of high operating costs associated with producing green hydrogen.
So, for certain processes we chose routes to optimize our carbon neutrality—for example, in the hydrogenation section, we have chosen to use heating oil rather than conventional burner fuel to raise operating temperature to 400 degrees Celsius. Although this is more costly, it kept us aligned with our goal of designing a carbon-neutral process.
What we’re most proud of
We were a tightly integrated team committed to doing the highest standard of work, spending hours every day to bring this to life. One of the fundamentals of engineering design is iteration. We may have gone a bit overboard on this! However, it’s an example of our commitment to producing strong deliverables and developing a feasible process. It was gratifying to have our professors recognize the professionalism of our P&ID, and we were thrilled that our poster won Judge’s choice on Design & Innovation Day. Our project report was also selected as the top project in the Chemical Engineering stream by the course instructors.
This project distilled everything we have learned over the past three years into one course. It affirmed for us the incredible scope of chemical engineering, with chemical engineers working at both very small and very large scales on projects that have a significant impact in the world – in this case, trying to find ways to decarbonize a sector that is notoriously difficult to make more sustainable.
