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Subject Area

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Article Type

Special Issue Original Study

Abstract

Global aviation sector contributes nearly 2.5% of global CO2 emissions. Aviation is hard-to-decarbonize sector due to the high energy densities required for aircraft. Commercial aviation is fueled by kerosene-based jet fuel. Alternatives for this carbonbased fuel include electric batteries, hydrogen fuel, and SAF. Electric batteries have very low energy densities. Hydrogen would require a complete change of the aviation system, including fuel & airport infrastructure. SAF is the only viable option in the short to medium term. SAF is produced from sustainable feed-stocks (like agricultural oils), with no embodied carbon. Existing airplanes can use traditional fuel blended with up to 50% SAF, without changing the aviation system. Currently, global SAF production accounts only for 0.5% of global aviation fuel, and costs at least 2 times more than traditional jet fuel. Egypt plans to produce SAF for the first time from UCO using the chemical process known as Hydro-processed Esters and Fatty Acids (HEFA). The contribution of this paper is to highlight some concerns regarding the feedstock availability and quality, the pricing of the product, and the required policies and regulations in order to produce SAF in Egypt successfully. Egypt can benefit from the existing units of its refineries, mainly hydrogenation and isomerization, and the produced SAF can be used for supplying its twenty six airports that operated 365,000 flights in 2023. Surplus SAF production can be exported, hence adding value to the Egyptian economy and contributing to decreasing the carbon emissions from the international aviation sector.

Keywords

Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF); Used Cooking Oil (UCO); De-carbonization of Aviation Sector

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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