Continuing its commitment to deliver price competitive, 100 percent replacement biofuels, Byogy Renewables Inc. and airline partner Avianca Brasil have launched a significant initiative to support advanced testing to accelerate the Byogy alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) ASTM approval.

Unlike the confusing term drop-in fuel, which is defined as the final mixture of hydrocarbon additive products with jet fuel produced from oil, Byogy's proprietary ATJ process produces one of the world's first full replacement fuel that does not require blending, and also demonstrates performance characteristics better than jet fuel produced from oil.  Byogy's jet fuel is not an additive, but instead, a full replacement standalone fuel, and hence can be used at any blend ratio up to 100 percent.

"Our goal with our partner Avianca is to first, support the approval of the ATJ suite of process technologies in accordance with current regulations that limit blending to 50 percent, and then, after gaining appropriate experience testing data, work with the ASTM stakeholders to study the potential use of higher blend ratios that will in turn drive the highest level of carbon reduction possible of any renewable fuel," said Kevin Weiss, CEO of Byogy.

The initiative will also study to validate the significant beneficial environmental impact achieved using Byogy's ATJ to satisfy the proposed ICAO 2050 Neutral Carbon Growth mandate for the country of Brazil by leveraging the existing, and abundant sugar cane feedstock, as opposed to waiting for years before other agriculture feedstock industries are proven cost effective.

"Avianca is fully committed to supporting the Byogy ATJ fuel approval process and believes it is the best solution for Avianca to achieve carbon neutrality for its operations in Brazil," said Captain Norberto Raniero, Vice President of Operations at Avianca.

"We believe that the increase in aviation demand will show that the only way to achieve the carbon reduction mandate, set out by the ICAO, is to use high blend ratios of renewable aviation fuel," said Weiss. "This is probably the most significant initiative in the aviation industry as it demonstrates the evolution to a full replacement, high quality renewable aviation fuel."

By leveraging the existing global feedstock of ethanol, Byogy is not limited to its own ability to produce alcohol and hence is not subject to the scale up risks associated with novel biological organisms.  Instead, Byogy's proven petrochemical process will capitalize on the global efforts that are currently driving the production cost of ethanol down.  As Weiss states, "at some point, we will wake up from this ethanol hangover and realize that it is more important to use alcohols to produce full replacement renewable aviation fuels than it is to push higher blends of alcohols into infrastructure that cannot support it."

Once approved by ASTM, it is anticipated that the Byogy ATJ bio-jet fuel will deliver to operators the multiple benefits including, lower fuel consumption, lower engine maintenance cost, and a significant beneficial environmental impact.