Hydrothermal Liquefaction for Aviation and Maritime Sustainable Fuels

Dear Colleagues,

The aviation and marine industries have committed to carbon-neutral growth. Unlike light-duty vehicles, the low energy density of even the best batteries severely limits opportunities for the electrification of the airline and marine sectors. While many are working on electrification, in the near- to mid-term period, the aviation and marine sectors will have no alternative but to use sustainable aviation and marine fuel to operate in a GHG-emission-constrained future. 

Aviation and maritime, key components of the transport fuel area, will thus be pillars of future sustainable energy scenarios and thus prioritized in policymaking, being the most difficult sectors to electrify. These applications, however, present very peculiar and different technological and economical challenges, and often involve additional processes such as product separation, mixing and/or upgrading.

A variety of technologies and processes are currently under development for producing sustainable aviation, marine and heavy-duty transportation fuels, and one of the promising technologies is the hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of biomass and/or low-cost wet waste and residual feedstocks.

Institutions across the globe are conducting research and development on HTL technology at scales varying from the laboratory to demonstration. The identification of more advanced and sustainable solutions to maximize the final fuel yield while targeting cost parity with conventional fuels is the major focus in developing HTL technology.

In addition to fuel, the HTL process produces an aqueous phase containing oxygenates such as ethanol at very dilute concentrations, a solid phase containing residual oil and nutrients such as phosphorous, and a gas phase containing concentrated carbon dioxide. Thus, the successful development of HTL technology requires a fundamental and applied-level understanding of utilizing all the phases of the products for improving the sustainability and overall economics of this process, in a full biorefining approach.

This Special Issue aims at investigating HTL technologies and processes, as well as the economic aspects of these sustainable fuel value chains. The submission of research work on new insights into, ideas for, case studies of and assessments of HTL is welcome, to provide an updated view on this process.

Prof. Dr. David Chiaramonti
Prof. Dr. Manuel Garcia-Pérez
Dr. Jonhathan Holladay
Dr. Karthikeyan K. Ramasamy
Prof. Dr. Lasse Rosendahl
Guest Editors

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