Arab News Japan

TOKYO: The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) said it has developed and produced a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in Japan for the aviation sector that helps reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and is expected to be used more widely.

The fuel was mixed with traditional jet fuel, and then the mixture was used to fuel scheduled ANA and JAL flights on June. 17, 2021.

METI said that this is part of a research and development project on technology conducted by a National Research and Development Agency called the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).  

NEDO and other companies including Mitsubishi Power, Ltd., JERA Co., Inc., Toyo Engineering Corporation, and IHI Corporation are working to develop this new Biojet Fuel technology.

METI’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s Civil Aviation Bureau participated in the project.

The SAF used was a mixture of neat SAF and a conventional fossil jet fuel.  Neat SAF is a sustainable jet fuel made from biomass raw materials. It must be mixed with a certain percentage of a conventional fossil jet fuel to fuel an aircraft, and there are limits on how much neat SAF can be mixed with fossil jet fuels that depend on what the neat SAF is made from and how it is made. 

Neat SAF from algae can be mixed with conventional jet fuel in amounts of up to 10%, and SAF made from wood biomass can be mixed in amounts of up to 50%, although at present the levels used in these test runs are still much lower than the maximum limit. 

All the SAF produced has been confirmed to comply with international standards, METI said.