UOP, a Honeywell company, has supplied the green jet fuel to power two F-16 aircrafts of the U.S. Air force in a Thunderbirds demo held at the Joint Base, Andrews, Md.
During a Joint Services Open House held on 20th and 21st May, two Thunderbird aircrafts flew utilizing a 50/50 mix of Honeywell Green Jet Fuel produced using camelina-based biofuel and petroleum-based jet fuel. The Air Force has utilized the Honeywell Green Jet fuel on the F-15 Eagle, the A-10 Thunderbolt, and the F-22 Raptor air crafts and certified its use. The event marks the first ever use of a green fuel mix by an air force demo team.
Honeywell UOP as a part of a joint initiative for the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency–Energy (DLA-E) for testing and certifying the use of alternative clean fuels has manufactured and supplied 400,000 gallons of Green Jet Fuel produced from in-edible type of plant sources. It procured the biofuel for the use of Air Force from Sustainable Oils, a company that grows Camelina crop and harvests it. The non-food type of plant does not use normal cultivable land or consume more water.
Earlier, Honeywell UOP under a DLA-E contract has supplied around 600,000 gallons of green and renewable jet fuel for the use of the Air Force and the U.S. Navy during October 2009. Honeywell UOP used its process technology and worked along with raw material suppliers such as Sustainable Oils, Cargill and Solazyme and used raw materials such as Camelina, algae and animal fats to generate 400,000 gallons of clean fuel for Air Force and 190,000 gallons for the Navy.
Honeywell UOP, under an accord signed with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2007, has formulated the Green Jet Fuel development technology for the supply of clean renewable jet fuel for the U.S. military’s usage.
Source: http://www.uop.com/