Ammonia as a Sustainable Fuel for Commercial Aviation – A Comprehensive Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58445/rars.3206Keywords:
Ammonia fuel, Aviation decarbonization, Commercial Aviation, Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)Abstract
Finding solutions to decarbonize aviation is one of the most pressing issues scientists currently face. Ammonia (NH3) has the potential to be a powerful tool towards solving this, given its lack of CO2 emissions when used in place of conventional jet fuel. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of ammonia with an additional assessment of Sustainable Aviation Fuels, hydrogen fuel, and all-electric battery systems based on emissions, ease of integration, and technological limitations. Evaluation of the three other fuels serves to provide a baseline of comparison, as these three are some of the most well-studied options and ammonia is less well-studied. Data was analyzed from both experimental and theoretical research across multiple disciplines to synthesize our findings. We find that pure ammonia is not ideal for direct combustion due to extremely low flame speed and high ignition delay time, and using ammonia as a hydrogen carrier either through cracking or two-stage combustion is undesirable due to high costs of implementation. Ultimately, we recommend further experimental study on the use of ammonia as an additive to fuel blends containing kerosene and hydrogen, as this is the most promising solution under the parameters previously established.
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