Grant: Alliance Grants

Process for synthetic jet fuel from bio- and waste-oil The challenge with producing transport fuel from renewable resources, such as biomass and organic waste, is that these materials are geographically widely distributed and have a lower energy content per unit mass than fossil fuels. The process for synthetic fuel that is under development makes use of distributed facilities to convert the biomass and waste into bio-oil and waste-oil. These oils have a higher energy content per unit mass and can be transported more cost effectively to a central facility where the oils are processed to produce transport fuels. A specific aim of the process is to produce synthetic jet fuel. A further challenge in making use of bio- and waste-oils, is the variability in oil composition. Differences in oil composition are managed by blending the oil and converting the blended oil into synthesis gas. The synthesis gas serves as feed for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. The intent is to directly make use of the cleaned synthesis gas, instead of adjusting its composition, thereby making the process simpler and less costly. However, this requires some development work to adapt the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, which is one of the focus areas of the project. As a consequence of the changes in the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, it is also necessary to pay attention to refining. The Fischer-Tropsch products must be refined to ensure that they meet Canadian transport fuel requirements, which is another focus area of the project. The work that will be performed forms part of a larger industrially led development that spans all of the process steps that were described.