Abu Dhabi: An innovative approach in producing biofuel through fish farming and a flowering plant called Salicornia has the potential to create a clean and sustainable way of powering aircraft.
The group behind the ambitious project is the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium (SBRC), of which Etihad Airways is a key member, contributing $2 million so far. Other organisations involved in the ambitious project include Masdar, Boeing, and Takreer.
“With our partners at Masdar we have looked at taking the wastewater that comes from fish farms and putting it through a biological treatment. After this process, the water is channelled through to the Salicornia plant,” Linden Coppell, Head of Sustainability, Corporate Affairs at Etihad Airways, said to Gulf News during a media delegation tour at Etihad Airways’ Innovation Centre in Abu Dhabi.
“The type of plant we are using has a lot of oil in its seeds. The wastewater feeds the plants, allowing them to grow, and afterwards we will extract the oil from the Salocornia plants which can then be used as jet fuel,” she added.
The project’s first pilot facility is scheduled for completion at Masdar City early next year, giving researchers an opportunity to study how effectively the system works.
“The methodology we are using is very simple, but we have to examine whether it can be something that is commercially viable. We need high oil yields from the plants and we need enough fish farms to feed the plans in order for it to be a success,” Coppell explained.
If successful, the project would be a major boost to protecting the environment, according to Coppell.
“Whenever we extract fossil fuels we are releasing more carbon into the air. On the other hand, when it comes to plants, we can say that the amount of carbon that is released is reduced by 50 to 80 per cent,” she said.
“As a society we have to find something that reduces our carbon dependency, and as an airline we need to look at ourselves as well because we are heavily dependent on fossil fuels at the moment,” Coppell added.
