Finding solutions to the energy and emissions crisis has been the focus of intense research efforts across many industries. Specifically, as the terrestrial transportation sectors begin to electrify, it is apparent that this not feasible for the vast majority of commercial aviation emissions, due to limitations present in battery technology energy densities and specific energies. At present emissions goals, sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) are the only near term (20-30 year) solution to meet these goals.  Unfortunately, currently approved pathways are not sufficient to meet this demand; meaning, the qualification of additional pathways is critical to meeting future emissions targets.  Due to the expenses tied to high volume pilot SAF production and evaluation, establishing reliable methodologies to rapidly characterize SAF to meet the safety and operability criteria of aviation turbine fuel with minimal volumes is of high importance. One option for characterizing these behaviors and properties involves a multidimensional gas chromatography system coupled with a flame ionization detector (FID) and vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) light detector.  Through the joining of these three technologies, more specific information is conferred through both quantification and identification of species. Much of the current research to date has  leveraged the separation capabilities of multidimensional chromatography yet lacked the advantage of distinguishing particular isomers that elute at similar times. With this proposed approach, uncertainties of property predictions are reduced due to the improved isomeric resolution, bringing the capability to accurately guide the SAF engineering efforts at the lowest possible technology readiness levels.  Here we will report on the progress to date on the numerical methods to characterize novel SAF candidates, conventional fuels, and what the next steps are in developing standards around these methods.

Numerical approaches for fuel characterization with multidimensional gas chromatography and ultraviolet light spectroscopy

ACS Fall 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.