Paris Air Show: Gevo, LanzaTech, DARPA progress on alcohol-to-jet fuel pathway

At the Paris Air Show, LanzaTech announced that it has been awarded funds from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to perform research focused on novel, low-cost routes to production of jet fuel from carbon monoxide sources. The project will focus on reducing the cost of alcohol intermediates, which will be thermochemcally converted to JP-8 renewable jet fuel. The size and terms of the award were not released at press time by DARPA.

LanzaTech CEO Dr. Jennifer Holmgren said that the economics of alcohol-to-jet fuel are driven by the cost of alcohol intermediates – LanzaTech’s technology, which produces alcohols by gas fermentation of CO-rich feedstocks such as industrial off-gases, has the potential to be an economically and environmentally sound approach to alternative aviation fuels. http://www.lanzatech.com

Also at the Air Show, Gevo will present test results conducted by SRI International and the Air Force Research Lab to the alcohol jet review (ATJ) commitee of ASTM. The next step in the ATJ specificaiton will be work with engine manufacturers to complete commercial engine testing. Full certification of ATJ is expected in 2013, by which time Gevo expects to have 110 million gallons of isobutanol capacity for use in the jet fuel and chemical markets. United Airlines and Gevo have previously signed a non-binding offtake agreement from ORD, starting in 2013.