RE: 5 years ago27 Nov 2019 11:37
Velocys is a company that has developed technology to convert feedstocks such as household waste into aviation fuel, and plans are underway for a commercial-scale plant in Immingham, UK. I spoke to Neville Hargreaves, Vice President of Waste to Fuels at Velocys, about how the company can contribute to the decarbonisation of the aviation industry with its renewable jet fuel.AVIATION accounts for more than 2% of global CO2 emissions, with around 895m t of CO2 emitted from domestic and international flights in 2018 according to the International Air Transport Association. This is an increase of 185m t compared to 2013, and without action, emissions would increase further with the increasing passenger numbers. Aviation is extremely difficult to decarbonise and as the industry grows, finding a way to curb emissions will be crucial. Renewable jet fuel, such as that produced by Velocys, will therefore play an important part in addressing the climate crisis.Velocys originated from two parent companies. Oxford Catalysts was formed in 2004 as a spin out from the University of Oxford, and in 2008 it acquired Velocys, which was a spin out from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The merger combined Oxford Catalysts' proprietary catalyst with Velocys' Fischer Tropsch (FT) technology, a process that converts syngas to hydrocarbons. "The invention that came out of PNNL was what we called microchannel technology, which is really about doing reactions in small tubes with high heat flux so that it removes heat very efficiently," says Hargreaves. "That's very important for the Fischer Tropsch reaction ? and for a number of others ? but we decided to focus on Fischer Tropsch."In the intervening decade, Velocys completed four demonstrations of its process at pilot scale, and in 2018 achieved a 5,000-hour run at commercial scale at its Oklahoma demonstration plant. It is currently developing two major projects; Bayou Fuels in Mississippi, US, which will convert wood waste to diesel for road transportation, and Altalto in Immingham, Lincolnshire, UK, which will convert household and commercial waste to sustainable aviation fuel. "We've come a long way over those years to get to a technology that's fully demonstrated at scale," says Hargreaves. The Altalto project is also backed financially by Shell and British Airways, which recently committed a further £2.8m (US$3.4m) that will be used for additional design and engineering work, in addition to the £4.9m (US$6m) already spent.The Velocys FT reactor was demonstrated at the ENVIA site in Oklahoma. Credit: VelocysSustainable routes to fuelThe waste-to-fuels process starts with physical sorting of the non-recyclable household and commercial waste, which includes shredding, drying, and removing any metals and inert materials. The remainder is gasified
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