Solid waste biomass as a potential feedstock for producing sustainable aviation fuel: A systematic review

The aviation industry is one of the most rapidly growing transportation sectors, and contributes 2% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Next decades, sustainable aviation fuels will play a key role in achieving reductions in aviation emissions. This study was aimed at investigating the potential of sustainable aviation fuel production from waste materials such as municipal solid waste, including food waste and waste cooking oils, as well as agricultural and forestry residues using current conversion technologies, based on data from recent literature. A systematic review was conducted using PRISMA analysis. Results showed that catalytic hydro-processing of waste lipid feedstocks is the most widely used conversion method for bio-jet fuel production. Moreover, waste plastic catalytic pyrolysis and co-pyrolysis with solid biomass residues can contribute to the implementation of effective policy support and improvement of current technologies to reduce production costs. Besides, gasification combined with Fischer–Tropsch and alcohol-to-jet processes revealed as interesting pathway for sustainable aviation fuel production. Although solid waste materials are promising alternative feedstocks for the production of biofuel, including aviation-range hydrocarbons, more research and development is required, as most of these advanced technologies have yet to be commercialised.