WITHDRAWN: Performance Simulation of a Micro Gas Turbine Using Various Sustainable Aviation Fuels

The aviation industry’s rapid expansion has brought increased scrutiny towards the environmental impact, particularly carbon emissions. Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) have emerged as a promising solution to mitigate aviation’s carbon footprint and help the sector achieve its net-zero emissions goals. These fuels are derived from renewable sources, such as biomass, municipal waste, and specific oils. They have shown promise in lowering CO₂ and particulate matter emissions, contributing to contrail formation and climate warming. Different SAFs offer unique advantages and challenges. For instance, coconut-based SAFs improve combustion efficiency but may impact engine durability due to increased turbine inlet temperature. Biodiesel blends face high-altitude limitations, as they reduce gaseous emissions but have elevated freezing points. Ethanol-kerosene blends, particularly those processed through the Alcohol-to-Jet pathway, have shown high thermal efficiency and reduced CO₂ and SO₂ emissions, although ethanol’s volatility requires careful handling. The ECLIF3 campaign, a key study highlighted in this paper, demonstrated that a 100 HEFA-SPK blend reduced non-volatile particulate emissions by up to 41% in real-flight conditions, indicating SAFs’ potential to cut particulate emissions and mitigate contrail formation. Despite these benefits, the adoption of SAF faces hurdles, including limited scalability, high production costs, and feedstock constraints. The paper emphasizes the importance of optimizing SAF blends and enhancing production methods to support the widespread and cost-effective implementation of SAF in aviation. To investigate SAFs' effectiveness further, computational simulations were conducted with ANSYS Fluent to analyse the performance of a minilab gas turbine engine running on these fuels.