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Jet fuel from coal

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The University of Dayton Research Institute has joined forces with the US Air Force Research Laboratory to create jet fuel from coal and biomass.

The University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) has joined forces with the US Air Force Research Laboratory to develop a process to create jet fuel from coal and biomass.

Funded by a $10m grant, researchers at the new Alternative Aerospace Fuels Research Facility plan to design and construct a coal and biomass gasifier for the production of synthesis gas, and hope to have it up and running early in 2010.

The research-scale gasifier, capable of producing up to 15 gallons of jet fuel per day from coal and biomass, will be sufficient for researchers to study the properties of the fuel at engine and aircraft manufacturing companies worldwide, in addition to those at the facility.

In addition, the researchers aim to investigate ways to create jet fuel with a carbon footprint well below that produced by current petroleum fuel refineries.

'We've already demonstrated that jet fuels produced from synthesis gas burn cleanly and have greatly reduced soot emissions compared with fuels produced from petroleum,' said Dilip Ballal, head of UDRI's Energy and Environmental Engineering division.

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