New biofuel made from sugarcane biomass could reduce nursery gas emissions from aviation , researcher suggest . And as an added bonus , this sweet source of aeroplane fuel would n’t need to vie with food production as it can be grown on areas undesirable for agriculture , ormarginal land .
Researchers from the University of California , Berkeley , have developed a newfangled method to convince sugar and biomass - educe constitutive speck called ketones into compounds that could serve as the edifice block of aviation fuel , and perhaps even diesel . Co - author Alexis Bell toldBBC Newsthat this “ Modern route of interpersonal chemistry ” has provide them to put “ these component part together to make jet Rudolf Diesel and lubricants . ”
Though many governments have acknowledge the need for alternative fuel to tighten nursery flatulency emissions from the air power manufacture , and to extenuate clime alteration , they have yet to make a ‘ road map ’ to using more renewable energy . Finding workable option to aviation fuel is particularly ambitious because , consort to Bell inIBTimes UK , neither solar power nor electricity can meet the needs of air power fuel .
“ Today all jet fuel is made almost exclusively from fossil oil but the mandates in the US and Europe are that , more and more , more and more of the air fuel will have a biomass element , without specifying how it gets there . We are furnish a strategy for getting there , " Bell tot up .
There are strict necessary when it comes to air travel fuel as it ca n’t contain any atomic number 8 , must have the right lubricity and simmering full point dispersion , and has to have a low pour point , which mean it ca n’t become gelatinlike at extremely lowly temperature . Bell tell BBC News : " What we have developed meets all of those criteria . "
The study , published in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , suggests that their scheme could reduce nursery gas emission by 81 % . investigator pep up policymakers to promote for mandates that will tackle the egress of cost , “ where any new technology produce a product that already exists is in a cost deprived position , ” Bell told IBTimes UK . With time , researchers hope the engineering science could be develop commercially .
