Abstract:
As the issue of carbon emissions in the global aviation industry becomes increasingly severe, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) derived from biomass has emerged as a crucial development direction for carbon reduction in this sector, owing to its low-carbon characteristics during production and use. However, the production cost of existing biomass-based SAF is significantly higher than that of traditional fossil jet fuel. Therefore, a comprehensive assessment of the resource consumption, environmental impact, and economic benefits associated with the production process of biomass-based SAF is crucial for optimizing SAF production technology. This will help reduce production costs and facilitate the large-scale production of low-carbon jet fuel. This article provides a systematic review of recent advancements in the life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) of biomass-based SAF production processes. It conducts a comparative analysis of various technological pathways from the perspectives of resources, environmental impact, and economic viability, highlighting their respective advantages and disadvantages. Among the life cycle assessment methods, the carbon footprint assessment for biomass-based SAF production is the most common and is widely used in a variety of SAF production processes. The statistical analysis results indicate that although the carbon reduction effectiveness of various production processes exhibits considerable variation, all demonstrate significantly lower carbon emissions compared to conventional fossil-based jet fuel, with carbon emission reduction percentages ranging from 17.4% to 96.8%. Moreover, LCA is employed to evaluate other environmental impacts besides carbon emissions in biomass-derived jet fuel production systems. The LCA results for the gasification Fischer-Tropsch (G−FT) process and aqueous phase reforming (APR) process revealed that, in addition to carbon emissions, these two production pathways emerged as predominant contributors to acidification potential and human toxicity potential, respectively. Sensitivity analysis shows that changes in land use, hydrogen production methods and power sources have significant impacts on carbon footprint. Furthermore, the LCA based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and exergic analysis significantly expand the evaluation dimensions of conventional LCA. The AHP-based approach enables comprehensive quantification of environmental impacts through multi-perspective weighting, while the exergic analysis method elucidates the relationship between energy utilization efficiency and resource consumption from a thermodynamic standpoint. The techno-economic analysis revealed that feedstock costs and production scale constitute the predominant determinants influencing the market price of biomass-derived sustainable aviation fuel. Expanding the production scale can, to a certain extent, distribute capital investment and reduce raw material costs. Sensitivity analysis further demonstrates that the fluctuation of biomass prices exhibits the most significant impact on the economy, and the production process of bio-jet fuel is affected by multiple uncertainties. Additionally, the exergic economic analysis incorporating life cycle thinking demonstrates that the self-powering scheme significantly reduces environmental costs while enhancing economic benefits by decreasing fossil energy dependence. Future research should focus on further optimizing the raw material supply chain, improving conversion efficiency, and promoting the application of green hydrogen. Additionally, it is recommended that governments strengthen policy support by implementing well-designed differentiated carbon tax and subsidy schemes. The multi-dimensional assessment provides a theoretical foundation for both technological optimization and large-scale application of biomass-based SAF production processes, helping the aviation industry reduce carbon emissions and increase efficiency, and achieve sustainable development.