Two major industrial collaborations have been established in Japan to progress ambitions for large-scale production of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) in the country, writes Tony Harrington. In the first project, sponsored by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment, six prominent corporations have joined forces to demonstrate the extraction of carbon dioxide from industrial exhaust gases, and its conversion into SAF as part of a broader plan to also drive regional revitalisation through carbon recycling. The second involving four major corporations, supported by the government’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO), will establish SAF commercial production by converting solid materials such as wood chips into fuel through a two-stage process of gasification and Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis, following a recent successful trial by Japan Airlines of woody biomass fuel on a domestic flight. Meanwhile, an IBA report estimates fuel efficiency per seat/km on Japanese domestic flights has improved significantly, largely through deployment of next-generation aircraft.  

The CO2 recycling, or E-fuels project, brings together Toshiba Energy Systems and Solutions Corporation, Toyo Engineering Corporation, Toshiba Corporation, Idemitsu Kosan, Japan CCS and All Nippon Airways to establish and demonstrate a process to collect and separate CO2, then transform it into SAF. Subject to finalising a contract with Toyo, UK-based Velocys said its FT synthesis technology would be used to convert gas to SAF in the project. Velocys will also demonstrate the diversity of feedstocks such as sustainable waste and biomass that can be used in conjunction with the FT technology to create SAFs. The project is scheduled to commence this month and continue until the end of March 2025.

The parallel project to convert solid biomass to fuel will be undertaken by a consortium of Toyo Engineering Corporation, JERA, Mitsubishi Power and ITOCHU Corporation. Velocys said it would also partner with Toyo in this programme, again using FT technology and other processes to efficiently convert woody biomass into SAF.

Velocys CEO Henrik Wareborn said the two projects highlighted the increasing momentum of the sustainable aviation fuel market. “Velocys is well-positioned to deliver its proprietary FT technology to biorefinery projects that convert a range of renewable feedstocks into the low carbon sustainable fuel that airlines need to meet their carbon reduction goals, without having to make any adjustment to engines or fuelling systems,” he said.  

Japan has long been a leader in the development and use of SAFs in the Asia Pacific region, and the government is intent on establishing large-scale domestic SAF production by 2030. The two biggest airline groups, All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL), have both been continuously active for more than a decade in encouraging, testing and investing in alternative fuels, as part of their broader decarbonisation strategies.

Since 2009, when Japan Airlines performed Asia’s first proving flight using SAF manufactured from the non-edible crop camelina, the carrier has continued to test a variety of blends, and in 2018 even initiated a project to produce sustainable fuel based on cotton obtained from 250,000 discarded garments, the first time SAF was fully produced in Japan. In June this year, JAL became the first airline to use SAF developed from gasified wood chips, synthesised by the Velocys FT process. And together with two major Japanese partners, the airline has invested in US-based SAF manufacturer Fulcrum BioEnergy . 

ANA too has long been focused on decarbonising its operations and recently blended microalgae into the fuel on a domestic flight. It has also entered a global fuel offtake partnership with SAF provider LanzaTech and has partnered with Finland’s Neste to enable access to SAF developed from renewable waste and residue raw materials.

The complex stages of the CO2-to-SAF project have been divided between the six partners in the consortium, who will leverage their respective strengths as follows:

• Toshiba Energy Systems to build and demonstrate a full-scale carbon dioxide electrolysis unit prototype, and conduct a review for a Power-to-Chemicals (P2C) plant;
• Toyo Corporation to create plans for an FT synthesis plant and a P2C plant;
• Toshiba Corporation to demonstrate the CO2 technology;
• Idemitsu Kosan to investigate a SAF certification scheme and standards, and create the basic plan for a SAF blending facility and quality control;
• Japan CCS to study the P2C demonstration plant site and regional cooperation plan; and
• ANA to conduct a study of the SAF market and fuel supply at airports.

For the second project, Toyo Engineering Corporation said it would undertake basic design of an FT synthesising facility in Japan; JERA would study applicable regulations, feedstock procurement, methods of mixing neat SAF with conventional jet fuel, and business feasibility; Mitsubishi would undertake basic design of a gasification facility; and ITOCHU would research supply logistics of SAF, by-products and by-product markets.

Meanwhile, a new report by aviation data group IBA has identified a 13% decline in CO2 emissions per seat, per kilometre, on Japanese domestic flights between January 2019 and June 2021.

While just over half of the survey period was blighted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and so impacting flight operations, IBA’s Senior Aviation Analyst Finlay Grogan, who authored the report, said the emissions reduction also reflected a tripling of the number of next-generation aircraft deployed on Japan’s domestic air routes.

The report said JAL had reduced emissions of its domestic flights by approximately 7% through deploying new Airbus A350-900 and Boeing 787-8 aircraft on high-capacity routes, replacing older, less-efficient Boeing 767-300s and 777-200s, the latter now retired by the airline.

Fleet renewal also enabled ANA and its low-cost division Peach to cut their emissions by more than 6% and 9% respectively through the introduction of Airbus A320neo jets to replace less-efficient A320ceo units, while ANA also exited older widebody jets.

ANA Wings was a standout in the IBA assessment, achieving a 13% cut in carbon emissions by replacing Boeing 737-500s with smaller, younger De Havilland Q400 turboprops.

The report said next-generation aircraft operated more than 16% Japanese internal flights in June 2021, compared to an average of just 5% through 2019, and said reductions would continue as the nation’s airlines continued to induct new narrowbody aircraft.

But beyond re-fleeting, Japan’s airlines have also reported significant additional emission reductions during the survey period from a range of operational initiatives including engine core washing, reduced use of auxiliary power units, optimised flight plans, continuous ascent and descent profiles, idle reverse thrust, single-engine taxi-in, optimised uplift of potable water supplies, the use of lightweight cargo containers, and even closing aircraft window shades while parked at airports to reduce the demand for air conditioning.   

Photo: ANA Wings achieved a 13% cut in carbon emissions by replacing Boeing 737-500s with De Havilland Q400 turboprops, says an IBA report

Japan’s two major airlines, All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL), each operated domestic commercial flights from Tokyo Haneda Airport on June 17 using sustainable aviation fuel produced in the country. The JAL flight, from Haneda to Sapporo used two different types of SAF in the jet fuel blend, one sourced from wood chips and the other from microalgae, while ANA used just microalgae in the fuel for its flight to Osaka Itami. The ASTM-certified SAF batches were produced under a project led by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), the Japanese national research and development agency. The JAL flight was the first in the world to use SAF derived from gasified wood chips synthesised into aviation fuel. It was produced in a Velocys Fischer-Tropsch (FT) reactor from the hydrogen and carbon gases generated by the gasification of the wood chips at a demonstration plant in Nagoya. A separate project between NEDO and IHI produced SAF for both flights from Hyper-Growth Botryococcus Braunii microalgae.

The fuels were produced under a project that ran from 2017 to 2020 with the aim of establishing technologies to produce inexpensive and reliable local commercial supplies of SAF by around 2030 to reduce aviation CO2 emissions. The NEDO project was tasked with finding ways to inexpensively collect algae with mass-culture technology and developing technology that stabilises the characteristics of gas for the gasification of wood chips.

The SAF derived from wood chips was produced under a collaboration by Toyo Engineering, Mitsubishi Power, JERA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The demo plant (see diagram below) was constructed on the premises of JERA’s Shin-Nagoya Thermal Power Station, which was also responsible for raw material procurement, with the technology supplied by Mitsubishi Power and Toyo Engineering, and JAXA evaluating and testing the jet fuel’s combustion characteristics. UK-based Velocys secured an agreement with Toyo in September 2019 to supply its FT technology, equipment and catalyst for the demo facility. It also agreed to grant an exclusive right for Toyo to secure and use the licence and technical services of its technology for a future commercial plant in Japan.

The facility, according to Velocys, produced 2,366 litres of neat aviation fuel blendstock that was tested to ensure it met the required ASTM D7566 Annex 1 international standard.

Commenting on the JAL flight, which the company says was the first commercial flight in the world to use wood chip derived jet fuel, Velocys CEO Henrik Wareborn said: “SAF synthesised with Velocys FT technology from gasified forestry residue has a 70% lower carbon intensity than conventional fossil jet fuel. In addition, FT SAF offers significant additional air quality improvements, thanks to 90% lower particulate emissions, 99% lower sulphur emissions and lower nitrogen oxide emissions than conventional fossil fuels.”

Responded Toyo CEO Haruo Nagamatsu: “The Velocys technology demonstrated high efficiency and stable performance at the NEDO plant, and contributed to the production of high-quality SAF, green naphtha and green diesel.”

JAL carried out Asia’s first biofuel test flight in January 2009, using SAF made from the non-edible crop camelina. Since then, it has flown two flights from the United States to Tokyo using SAF in 2017 and 2019, and from June 2019 five delivery flights of new A350 aircraft from the Airbus plant in Toulouse have used SAF. In 2018, JAL launched a project to convert cotton clothing into locally produced SAF and in February this year operated the first domestic flight to use locally sourced SAF.

The airline is an investor in US SAF producer Fulcrum BioEnergy and is planning to use SAF on flights departing North America and says it is conducting a feasibility study with domestic companies on manufacturing and selling SAF in Japan made from waste plastic.

The SAF used on the Tokyo-Sapporo flight totalled 3,132 litres, including the microalgae-derived fuel, representing a 9.1% blend with conventional fuel. JAL says this was the first time two different types of SAF had been used on the same flight.

IHI’s microalgae project started in 2017 and algal culture tests have taken place in Kagoshima and Thailand. The fuel produced was approved in May 2020 under new Annex 7 of ASTM D7566, the first time a Japanese corporation as an applicant has obtained the international standard. The company said it would continue to study the formation of a supply chain for producing and supplying fuel from the feedstock, and aims to commercialise the fuel “as soon as possible”.

ANA announced in April a net zero emissions goal for 2050, with an interim 2030 target of carbon emissions from aircraft operations being less than or equal to 2019. The increased use of SAF “will be at the core” of CO2 emission reduction measures, said the airline. In 2019, ANA signed a SAF offtake agreement with LanzaTech, which was expanded in 2020 that gives it the opportunity to participate in a fuel offtake across LanzaJet’s global portfolio and production (see article). Last November also saw ANA signing an agreement with SAF producer Neste that included a first delivery of Neste SAF sourced from renewable waste and residue raw materials, which was used on ANA flights from Tokyo (see article).

Photo: JAL A350 readied for Tokyo-Sapporo SAF flight