Process analysis and comparative assessment of advanced thermochemical pathways for e-kerosene production

Climate change and energy supply are major driving forces for the promotion of sustainable fuels production. In the aviation sector, due to inherent difficulties to adopt electrification methods for long distance flights, the successful implementation of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is crucial for the achievement of greenhouse gas emissions mitigation strategies. This study presents four different pathways for the valorization of captured CO2 into synthetic kerosene using hydrogen and demonstrates the comparative assessment in terms of various technical and aspects such as hydrogen consumption, thermal energetic efficiency and produced e-kerosene quality. Two pathways are based on Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, a low-temperature CO conversion though reverse water-gas shift reaction and a high-temperature direct CO2 conversion, while the other two are based on the valorization and upgrading of light alcohols (methanol and ethanol) derived from CO2 hydrogenation. The process models were developed in Aspen Plus. Simulation results revealed that the low-temperature CO conversion pathway is the most efficient to maximize jet fuel yield with the lower energy and exergy losses. Indicatively for that case, 90.7% of the initial carbon is utilized for kerosene fraction synthesis, the overall thermal efficiency is 70.9% whereas the plant exergetic efficiency is 72.6%. The basic properties of the produced e-kerosene for all pathways meet with the required Jet-A1 specifications or are close to them. •Sustainable conversion of CO2 into synthetic aviation fuels.•Four different thermochemical pathways for CO2 valorization into synthetic kerosene.•Process models development in Aspen Plus, energy and exergy analysis.•Low Temperature FT pathway has the higher efficiency and carbon utilization.•The produced e-kerosene from all pathways meets Jet-A1 specifications.