Recent measurements have shown that sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) made from biomass produce lower soot emissions from aviation gas turbines than conventional petroleum-derived fuels, which reduces the climate change impact of aviation by suppressing contrail formation.  These lower emissions are usually attributed to the low aromatic content of SAF; however, the effect of fuel structure on sooting propensity is much more nuanced than simply aromatics emit high soot and aliphatics emit no soot.  In particular, cycloalkanes, which are often major constituents of SAF, can have a wide range of sooting propensities depending on the number and size of rings, the number and size of side chains, etc.  We have developed a laboratory-scale metric, yield sooting index (YSI), which characterizes the sooting tendency of a fuel or pure compound and can be measured with very low sample volumes (&lt; 1 mL).  This presentation will include (1) recently measured YSIs for a wide range of cycloalkanes produced by hydrogenating terpenes; (2) discussion of which structural features promote low sooting tendencies; (3) evidence that YSIs correlate with emission measurements from real gas turbines; and (4) a correlation between YSI and the ASTM smoke point test used in jet fuel specifications.

Sooting tendencies of sustainable aviation fuels

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

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