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Brazil’s new facility will make SAF from macaúba palms
Better bioethanol purity using membranes
Engineering plants for lower lignin (fibre) content

In late August, Brazil inaugurated the Acelen Agripark that targets 1 billion liters of SAF per year from 2028. The facility is built near macaúba palm plantations. Macaúba is a species of palm native to tropical American countries (Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina), quite hardy - can thrive in different soils & variable rainfall, and is rich in oil.

Recognized for its great capacity to produce biodiesel, macauba can yield up to 26 times more oil than soya. According to research by the Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC) in São Paulo and Minas Gerais, the production of oil from the pulp can reach 3,000 kilos per hectare in commercial plantations.
“The pulp oil has 70% oleic acid in its composition, which makes it suitable for biodiesel production, while the seed oil is rich in short-chain fatty acids (with up to 12 carbons), which gives it excellent quality for the food and cosmetics industries,” explained IAC researcher Carlos Colombo in an interview.
Fraunhofer Brazil

Bioethanol is one raw material in consideration for making SAF. The blocker in using this commercially is the high moisture content of the final product, which then needs to be dehydrated using a lot of energy. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is testing a molecular sieve separation method - membranes to that allow selective molecules to pass through - for reducing the water content of bioethanol and claims this reduces energy consumption over the conventional method by 30%. They recently achieved 99.5% bioethanol purity at a pilot plant in Nagasaki using the membrane dehydration system.

One of the main technical challenges in making biofuel is the fibre content of the plants. This fibre is mostly in the form of cellulose, hemicellulose held together by lignin molecules. Cellulose and hemicellulose are broken into their sugars using enzymes, but lignin is difficult to break down and interferes with the fermentation of the sugars present. This leads biofuel producers to lean towards plants with high sugar and low fibre content - such as corn - for raw materials, but these also tend to be valuable for foods or other uses.

Any technical advancement that allows either lowering the fibre content in plants by genetic engineering, or breaking down the fibre at lower cost, will allow many more plants and even agricultural waste to be used for biofuel production.

New research finds that the ratio of 2 main molecules that make up lignin - syringyl & guaiacyl - can affect how easily it can be decomposed. In colder climates, there’s more guaiacyl (G) in the lignin of poplar trees, making it harder to process. In warmer climates, the G content is lower, resulting in a higher S-to-G ratio. Researchers have identified one of the genetic mutations that influences the variation in the S & G content of lignin, and believe it might be possible to design trees where the lignin has a higher S-to-G ratio and is easier to process for biofuels and biomaterials.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel - what's new?

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