Photo: Airbus
Contrary to what some people seem to believe, contrails are not a way for the evil governments of the world use to poison us. They can, however, be harmful to the environment, with some studies pointing that they may be an even larger contributor to the global warming effect than CO2.
Contrails are a natural phenomenon that occurs when engine fuel combustion results in water vapor. When that happens at very high altitudes, where it’s very cold, the vapor rapidly condenses in the presence of sulfur aerosols and other substances. These ice crystals, which have a habit of staying in the air for long periods of time, can trap the heat that would otherwise have leaked into space.
There’s not much we can do about contrails with our current level of technological development, but the use of cleaner fuels in aviation may have an impact on their effects. At least that’s what the “world's first in-flight study of the impact of using 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) on both engines of a commercial aircraft” seems to show.
The study, called ECLIF3, is the work of Airbus, Rolls-Royce, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and Neste, a producer of SAF. It involved an Airbus A350 powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines and the use of the miracle fuel alone.
The A350 was flown for undisclosed amounts of time followed by a chase plane, and the results of using SAF were compared to those got when the aircraft burned conventional Jet A-1 fuel. In a nutshell, SAF seems to determine a “reduction in soot particles and formation of contrail ice crystals.”
How much of a reduction? As per the authors of the research, contrail icer crystals per mass of unblended SAF fuel used was cut down by 56 percent compared to jet fuel. As a result of that, the impact of the contrails on the environment are believed to be reduced by as much as 26 percent.
The study, conducted in 2021, can now be found in full in the Copernicus Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics journal. It revealed that “using SAF in flight could significantly reduce the climate impact of aviation in the short term by reducing non-CO2 effects such as contrails, in addition to reducing CO2 emissions over the lifecycle of SAF.”
In the fall of 2023 American aerospace Boeing got into the contrail-SAF game as well, and partnered with space agency NASA and United Airlines to determine the impact the fuel has on the trails aircraft leave behind them when moving through the air.
We still have no word on how research is progressing, but it will be interesting to see whether Boeing confirms Airbus’ findings, a crucial aspect these days, when more and more airplanes are using SAF to go about their business.
There’s not much we can do about contrails with our current level of technological development, but the use of cleaner fuels in aviation may have an impact on their effects. At least that’s what the “world's first in-flight study of the impact of using 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) on both engines of a commercial aircraft” seems to show.
The study, called ECLIF3, is the work of Airbus, Rolls-Royce, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and Neste, a producer of SAF. It involved an Airbus A350 powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines and the use of the miracle fuel alone.
The A350 was flown for undisclosed amounts of time followed by a chase plane, and the results of using SAF were compared to those got when the aircraft burned conventional Jet A-1 fuel. In a nutshell, SAF seems to determine a “reduction in soot particles and formation of contrail ice crystals.”
How much of a reduction? As per the authors of the research, contrail icer crystals per mass of unblended SAF fuel used was cut down by 56 percent compared to jet fuel. As a result of that, the impact of the contrails on the environment are believed to be reduced by as much as 26 percent.
The study, conducted in 2021, can now be found in full in the Copernicus Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics journal. It revealed that “using SAF in flight could significantly reduce the climate impact of aviation in the short term by reducing non-CO2 effects such as contrails, in addition to reducing CO2 emissions over the lifecycle of SAF.”
In the fall of 2023 American aerospace Boeing got into the contrail-SAF game as well, and partnered with space agency NASA and United Airlines to determine the impact the fuel has on the trails aircraft leave behind them when moving through the air.
We still have no word on how research is progressing, but it will be interesting to see whether Boeing confirms Airbus’ findings, a crucial aspect these days, when more and more airplanes are using SAF to go about their business.
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