Realizing “net-zero-carbon” sustainable aviation fuel

Dr. Derek Vardon is the chief technology officer of Alder Fuels. Prior to joining Alder Fuels, he worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) leading research and development projects to decarbonize aviation and heavy-duty ground transportation with fuels produced from biomass and waste. He is the author of over 30 peer-reviewed scientific publications on biofuels and biobased chemicals, inventor on multiple pending and issued US patents, and affiliate faculty member in the department of chemistry at the Colorado School of Mines. He received his BS, MS, and PhD in environmental engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Bryan Sherbacow is the chief executive officer of Alder Fuels, which is commercializing technology to enable carbon-negative crude oil from biomass for use in existing refineries. Alder partnered with Honeywell for development and licensing. United Airlines has contracted with Alder for the largest publicly announced agreement for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in aviation history to date. Mr. Sherbacow is a recognized pioneer in the development of low carbon fuels and responsible for the first commercialization of SAF. He serves as Chairman of the Low Carbon Fuels Coalition and a steering committee member of the Business Aviation Coalition for SAF. Dr. Kaiyu Guan is a Blue Waters Associate Professor in ecohydrology and remote sensing and the Founding Director of Agroecosystem Sustainability Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He got his PhD at Princeton University and was a postdoc fellow at Stanford University before he joined UIUC in Feb 2016. Guan's group at UIUC focuses on bringing the interdisciplinary domain knowledge (plant ecology, hydrology, biogeochemistry, and climate science), satellite/airborne data, fieldwork, supercomputing, and machine learning together to revolutionize how we monitor and model plant-carbon-water-nutrient interactions for agricultural ecosystems, across the US and globe. Dr. Joshua Heyne is an associate professor of mechanical & aerospace engineering at the University of Dayton. Since 2014, Professor Heyne has worked to streamline the qualification process of SAFs under the 40-institution and 150-member National Jet Fuel Combustion Program (NJFCP). Outside of the NJFCP, Professor Heyne works on SAF candidate prescreening, GCxGC methods, high-performance fuels, and engine design to utilize SAF properties. He is a quad-chair of the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative R&D committee and coordinates across companies and research institutions toward aviation decarbonization. He holds four degrees, including a PhD in mechanical & aerospace Engineering from Princeton. Dr. Zia Abdullah is the biomass laboratory program manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and leads the laboratory's Sustainable Aviation Fuels program. Zia is a mechanical engineer with extensive experience and accomplishments in thermochemically and biochemically converting biomass to fuels and chemicals. His experience includes more than 25 years of research and development in fast pyrolysis, gasification, hydrotreatment, biomass deconstruction, fermentation, separations, process integration and scaleup, as well as risk analysis, business development, and project management. Prior to NREL, Zia was institute fellow at the Battelle Memorial Institute, and before that engineering advisor at Weyerhaeuser Company.