The scientists who managed to turn human feces into jet fuel

The unthinkable becomes reality.

An aviation company developed a type of fuel made entirely from human wastewater.

Those responsible are chemists from a laboratory in Gloucestershire, United Kingdom, and they have managed to convert bodily waste into kerosene.

“We wanted to find a cheap raw material that was plentiful. And of course, there’s poop in abundance,” says James Hygate, executive director of Firefly green fuels.

A series of independent tests by international aviation regulators found the fuel to be virtually identical to standard fossil jet fuel.

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The Firefly team worked with Cranfield University to investigate the impact of carbon on the fuel life cycle. He concluded that Firefly’s was fuel has a 90% smaller ecological footprint than that of standard aviation fuel.

Hygate, who has been working on creating low-carbon fuels from Gloucestershire for 20 years, noted that although the new invention is chemically similar to fossil-based kerosene, “There is no fossil carbon in it, it is a fossil-free fuel.”

“Of course energy would be used (in production), but if you look at the life cycle of the fuel, a 90% saving is staggering, so yes we have to use energy, but it is much less compared to the production of fossil fuels. he added.

Flights and CO2 emissions

Aviation contributes approx 2% of global CO2 emissionswhich contributes to climate change.

It’s a small part, but it’s increasing. And eliminate CO2 emissions from flights It is one of the most difficult challenges.

Work is currently underway to develop electric aircraft.

In addition, a company in the Cotswolds, also in the United Kingdom, promises electric hydrogen flights for a dozen passengers by 2026.

But it will take years, perhaps decades, before mass air travel is powered by entirely new technology.

That’s why finding new and more ecological ways to produce kerosene without using fossil fuels is now a priority “world gold rush”.

20 years ago

On a small farm in Gloucestershire, Hygate started converting rapeseed oil into biodiesel for cars and trucks 20 years ago.

His company, Green Fuels, now sells equipment to convert cooking oil into biodiesel and has customers all over the world.

He then started looking for ways to produce green jet fuel. He tried used oils, food scraps and even agricultural residues.

Later with human waste. And to do this he collaborated with Sergio Lima, a chemist from Imperial College London. Together they developed a process that converts feces into electricity.

To do this, they must first and foremost create what they call “biocrude”.

It looks like oil: thick, black, sticky. But most importantly, it chemically behaves like crude oil.

“What we are producing here is a fuel with net zero emissions,” said Lima, who is also director of research at Firefly Green Fuels.

When Lima first saw the results, he was amazed.

“This is very exciting because it is produced from a sustainable raw material, to which we all contribute.”

In his laboratory, the scientist has a miniature version of the enormous fractional distillation columns that rise above oil refineries.

Yours does the same. The liquid is heated and then the gases are distilled at precise temperatures to obtain the right “cut” for different fuels.

Drop by drop, a new transparent liquid is deposited into the collection tubes.

“This is our biofuel,” he says, smiling.

“It’s great to see the final fuel.”

A chance

Biokerosene is independently tested at the DLR Combustion Technology Institute of the German Aerospace Center, in collaboration with Washington State University.

The British SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuels), based at the University of Sheffield, will also carry out further tests in the future.

The first results confirm that the fuel It has a chemical composition almost identical to that of fossil fuels for A1 aircraft.

The British Ministry of Transport in turn awarded the team a research grant of over $2 million.

This group of scientists can make kerosene in a test tube in a laboratory. But that is far from replaced to refuel at the world’s airports.

Hygate has done his math. Each person, he estimates, produces enough wastewater in a year to produce 4 to 5 liters of biofuel for aircraft.

To fly a passenger plane from London to New York would require the wastewater of 10,000 people per year.

And another 10,000 to give back.

Put another way, the UK’s total wastewater supply would cover around 5% of the country’s total jet fuel demand.

It may not seem like much, but he emphasizes: “It’s exciting.”

Fuel made from waste oil, corn oil or other non-fossil sources is called sustainable aviation fuel.

Problem the same amount of carbon dioxide in airplanesBut since the plants originally used for the fuel captured CO2 as they grew, experts believe this represents an 80-90% reduction in carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

Environmentalists emphasize this people should just fly less and use crops for food or energy production, not jet fuel.

Environmentalists prefer wastewater fuel because “human waste might be.” the only form of waste that society really has no choice but to produce‘, as expressed by Cait Hewitt, policy director at the Aviation Environment Federation.

Today, only 0.1% of aviation fuel is ‘sustainable’. Given this reality, Hygate’s target of 5% seems like a meaningful goal.

Moreover, a raw material is used that no one else wants, but which is universal.

“Although it was developed in south-west Britain,” he says, “it is a global opportunity.”

“The opportunities in densely populated cities are enormous. “The amount of fuel we can create is enormous.” (JO)