Abstract:

Petroleum jet fuel (PJF) is the predominant fuel used in the global commercial aviation sector. Most proposed pathways for decarbonizing commercial aviation involve replacing PJF with a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), jet fuel produced from biomass or renewable power. But near-term SAF use will be limited by its high cost (2 to 5 times higher than PJF), supply constraints, and the geographic mismatch between feedstock supply and jet fuel demand. This study aims to (1) delineate the type of processes and process modifications that refineries would have to undertake to reduce the naphthalenes content of PJF, and (2) provide a preliminary, first-order assessment of the technical and economic feasibility of these process routes. Two refining technologies were considered: hydrotreating and extractive distillation. This analysis indicates that both processes could remove most of the naphthalenes in PJF by processing only straight run kerosene, the PJF component in which most of the naphthalenes reside.