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There are already more than 2,000 mirrors in Jülich that are designed to capture and focus sunlight in order to produce kerosene
Photo: Synhelion
According to its own statements, the Swiss airline Swiss wants to be the first airline in the world to use solar fuel.
Swiss and the parent company Lufthansa would work together with the Swiss manufacturer Synhelion, the airline announced on Tuesday.
In 2016, researchers from the Swiss University ETH in Zurich founded the company Synhelion.
"The collaboration with Synhelion is based on the shared vision of making CO₂-neutral flying in regular flight operations possible in the future using solar fuels," said the airline's CEO, Dieter Vranckx, in a statement.
Philipp Furler, the CEO and co-founder of Synhelion, also commented, saying: »We believe in a globalized world connected by climate-friendly mobility.
We look forward to the day when the first Swiss plane takes off with our solar kerosene.«
Mirrors focus the light and direct the energy to solar towers
This day should not be too far in the future: Airline Swiss is supposed to be fueling its planes with solar kerosene as early as 2023.
To make this possible, Synhelion wants to build the world's first plant for the industrial production of solar fuels this year.
The plant is to be built in Jülich in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The German Aerospace Center already maintains a test facility there for commercial solar thermal power plants and for the development of solar fuels.
This system consists of two so-called solar towers and more than 2000 moving mirrors, which are set up on an area of about ten hectares.
These mirrors catch the sunlight, focus it and direct it towards the two solar towers.
Various experiments are taking place in one of the towers, while in the other the concentrated sunlight is converted into electricity by generating steam in a steam turbine.
Concentrated solar heat is also to be used for the process developed by Synhelion: the solar radiation is concentrated on a receiver via a mirror field and converted into high-temperature process heat.
The heat generated in this way – at temperatures of more than 1500 degrees Celsius – is fed into a thermochemical reactor in which water and CO₂ are added to produce a synthesis gas: a mixture of hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO).
This synthesis gas is then processed into fuels such as petrol, diesel or even jet fuel using standard gas-to-liquids technology.
According to Synhelion, excess heat can be stored in a thermal energy storage device to enable continuous 24/7 operation.
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During combustion, only as much CO₂ is later released as was previously used in its manufacture.
According to Synhelion, such a "sun-to-liquid fuel" closes the CO₂ cycle, since it only releases as much CO₂ during combustion as was previously used for its production.
Solar kerosene is an economical and resource-saving substitute for fossil fuels, said co-founder Furler.
The companies also announced that Synhelion's partnership with Swiss and the Lufthansa Group extends to the development of a proposed commercial fuel facility in Spain.
The goal: 875 million liters of solar fuel per year
According to Synhelion, it wants to produce 875 million liters of solar fuel per year by 2030.
This would cover around half of Swiss fuel consumption.
If used, solar kerosene would be one of several sustainable aviation fuels.
Kerosene, for example, can also be obtained from biomass, but alternatives to biofuels are needed because of the limited availability.
Aviation fuels that are produced without using fossil energy sources are also referred to as SAF: Sustainable Aviation Fuels.
The Lufthansa Group is already using SAF, which are made from used cooking oils.
So far, however, SAF have only made up a very small proportion of the fuel used in aviation.
vki/dpa
