Designing the Next Generation of Nanocatalysts for Sustainably Produced Aviation Fuels

Over the course of more than a century, our society, as well as its prosperity, has benefited from the burning of hydrocarbon-based fossil fuels (FF) to generate energy. However, the burning of FFs has disrupted the natural environment through the release of toxic gases like carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide, and methane. Despite this, the usage of FFs is predicted to continue increasing at a rate of 1.3% per year up until the year 2030, thereby increasing greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbating global climate change. The aviation sector plays a pivotal role in the modern world in facilitating communication, trade, and marketing on a global scale. It is also a major contributor to the production of greenhouse gases like CO2. An alternative to FFs for aviation are biofuels, which can be simply described as any energy-rich chemical generated from biomass. Biofuels are special because they combine many desirable qualities in one product. For instance, they are renewable, biodegradable, low toxic, diverse, and easily available. Nanometer-scale catalysts play an important role in producing renewable biofuels under ecologically benign settings. The development of catalytic nanomaterials has been prioritized, along with biodiesel and high-density fuels, as an important area of study. Nanocatalysts such as solid-state catalysts are reusable and due to their nano size are highly active, similar to the properties of homogeneous catalysts. Furthermore, they exhibit novel and distinctive catalytic activities that are unachievable by similar materials with dimensions larger than the nanometer scale. This chapter focuses on Fischer-Tropsch synthesis as the downstream technology for sustainably producing aviation fuels. All reactions and mechanisms, the synthesis procedure, and the characterization of the nanocatalysts, including other related properties and processes, are discussed in the chapter.