Publications
Partners
Frankfurt - As part of its testing of alternative fuels the Lufthansa Group has marked another milestone on Friday when a flight from Frankfurt to Berlin was operated using a 10% blend of the new biofuel component farnesan.
This was the first scheduled flight in Europe to run on this fuel mix.
Farnesan is a sugar based bio-kerosene developed jointly by Total and the US company Amyris. It was approved in June 2014 for blending with petroleaum based kerosene.
In order to translate research projects conducted jointly with universities and business enterprises into practice, the Lufthansa Group also relies on the use of jatropha, an oil-bearing plant that grows in tropical and sub-tropical regions.
Lufthansa has signed a memorandum of understanding with JatroSolutions, a subsidiary of EnBW, the third largest German energy company, to make jatropha production commercially viable.
In future Lufthansa will help the start-up company to set up a raw materials supply chain to ensure the provision of biosynthetic fuel derived from the jatropha plant.
"In order to secure the supply of aviation biofuel, the requisite raw materials must be cultivated sustainably at competitive prices," said Joachim Buse, vice president aviation biofuel at Lufthansa.
"The Lufthansa Group, therefore, places great emphasis on the recognised certification of sustainably produced raw materials and on respecting social and development policy considerations."
In 2011 Lufthansa became the first airline worldwide to use a biofuel mix in scheduled daily operations when it conducted a six month test with an Airbus A321 on the Frankfurt-Hamburg route.
- Fin24
