Biofuel for Flying Aircraft

Airlines are constantly battling the rising prices of aviation fuel. The refined fossil fuels that are used by commercial airlines are not only responsible for higher air fares, they will soon be hard to access. Does that mean that flying will soon become redundant? Not if researchers at the University of Illinois have their way.

The researchers at the University of Illinois’ Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology have been working on a science project which involves creating bio fuel to run air crafts on. They have used 54 acres to produce a specially engineered sugarcane which is able to provide a bio fuel that can run a plane for ten hours.

To consider how remarkable that is, we need to know that a single gallon of regular aviation fuel is able to fly an air craft for just one second. Besides sugarcane the researchers have created bio fuel from soybeans as well. Not only is plant based fuel cheaper to produce than fossil fuels, it has no harmful side products that are released into the environment.

The residual sugar that is left over after the oil is removed from the sugarcane to be processed as bio fuel, can also be converted into ethanol or sold commercially. There is the matter of some engineering changes to be made to the engine, but overall the bio fuel will prove more economical than the current aviation fuel.