Lufthansa runs Berlin to Frankfurt flight on 10% farnesan

In Germany, Lufthansa Group has marked another milestone in its pioneering work in the testing of alternative fuels. On Monday, Lufthansa flight LH 190 from Frankfurt to Berlin Tegel was operated using a ten percent blend of the new biofuel component farnesan. This is the first scheduled flight in Europe to run on this fuel mix. Farnesan is a sugar-based bio-kerosene developed jointly by the TOTAL oil group and the U.S.-based biotech company Amyris, which in April of this year received RSB (Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials) Certification.

The flight was preceded by a rig test at Lufthansa Technik’s facility in Hamburg in autumn 2013 as part of the EU’s “Blending Study” project. The tests showed that blending can improve fuel emission characteristics. Farnesan was approved in June 2014 for blending with petroleum-based kerosene.

In order to translate the research projects conducted jointly with universities and business enterprises into practice, the Lufthansa Group also relies on the use of jatropha, an oil-bearing plant that grows in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Lufthansa has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with JatroSolutions GmbH (a subsidiary of EnBW, the third-largest German energy company) to make jatropha production commercially viable. In future, Lufthansa will help the start-up company to set up a raw materials supply chain to ensure the provision of biosynthetic fuel derived from the jatropha plant.