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The aviation industry is likely to get a new kind of biofuel as Air New Zealand has announced to under take a test fight using sustainable biofuel produced from the seeds of the African jatropha plant. The two-hour test fight will take place on December 3, this year. According to official sources, the fuel for the test fight will be prepared by equally mixing standard jet fuel and synthetic paraffinic kerosene derived from jatropha oil.
One of Air New Zealand's Boeing 747-400's Rolls-Royce RB211 engines will be powered by the bio-fuel during the test flight. According to Rolls Royce fuels specialist, Chris Lewis, the jatropha blend fuel showed positive results in laboratory testing. The newly developed bio-fuel fulfilled all the technical requirements for fuels used in civil and defence aircraft, he added. Lewis informed that the blended fuel resembles the conventional jet fuel used in commercial aviation.
The test fight using blended fuel will be organised jointly by Rolls-Royce and UOP, a Honeywell company. If the experiment becomes successful, global aviation industry will find a new kind of fuel to replace the conventional fuel. Jatropha plants are grown extensively in environmentally sustainable farms of Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and India. The seeds of these plants contain inedible lipid oil used to produce fuel.
