Strategic Planning for the Supply Chain of Aviation Biofuel with Consideration of Hydrogen Production

Abstract

Substitution of petro-based aviation fuel with biomass-derived aviation fuel is an emerging strategy to reduce the carbon footprint associated with the aviation sector. There are several pathways for the production of aviation biofuel, and most of them require the use of hydrogen. Therefore, the analysis of the aviation biofuel supply chain must incorporate the production of hydrogen. This paper presents an optimization approach for the strategic planning of aviation fuel supply chains, which considers hydrogen production from fossil and renewable raw materials. The approach also considers extraction of fossil materials, growth of biomass, selection and several processing routes of the feedstock, along with the distribution of products. As a case study, the strategic planning of aviation biofuels in Mexico considering the generation of biomass and the hydrogen production is selected. The results show that significant decreases in producing costs and CO 2 emissions can be obtained if aviation fuel is generated from renewable raw materials. This finding is quite important, because in Mexico 90% of the consumed energy proceed from fossil sources. Several scenarios are addressed to assess the key factors in the design of the supply chain, reconciling the economic and environmental objectives; and also an analysis for the integration of the infrastructures of the fossil fuels and biorefineries is presented.