For the first time in Italy, the use of mixtures of biofuel and kerosene on a military jet has been tested, achieving a reduction of up to 40% of overall polluting emissions. To calculate this cut was a study published in the international journal Toxics, which also investigates the overall impact on health and the environment of these new aviation fuels. The research was conducted by ENEA researchers, in collaboration with Aeronautica Militare, as part of the cooperation agreement on the use of biofuels in the aviation sector, which also involves Cnr and the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security.
The tests were conducted on two different mixtures containing 13% and 17% of biofuel during several engine tests with aircraft on the ground, at the Air Division of Experimentation and Space (DASAS) of the military airport of Pratica di Mare, near Rome. “Thanks to our mobile laboratory we have calculated the emission indices by type of fuel, which express the concentration of pollutant present in the exhaust gases of the aircraft as a function of the amount of fuel burned”, explains Antonella Malaguti, ENEA researcher at the Atmospheric Pollution Laboratory at the Bologna Research Center. “The two biofuel-based blends recorded an average reduction of 20% – and up to 40% for medium engine power – of black carbon emissions for all tests; at the same time, we detected an increase of up to 30% in nitrogen dioxide and the amount of total particles emitted, especially nanoparticlee,” adds Malaguti.
“An absolute novelty for this type of research was the evaluation of the potential biological responses of the human lung to combustion products, through the direct exposure of an in vitro model of bronchial cells to emissions from both fossil fuels and the two biofuel-based mixtures. This test, associated with the calculation of the exposure dose at the lung level, opens up relevant scenarios for the determination of the potential risk for humans”, underlines researcher Maurizio Gualtieri, in service at ENEA at the time of the research and now at the University of Milan-Bicocca. “Furthermore – continues Gualtieri – the test campaign showed a greater deposition of fine and ultrafine particles (ie with a diameter of less than 100 nanometers), both in the cellular system and in the lungs, even if this increase should not be ascribed primarily to the bio component of fuelmixtures”. Biological results showed an increase in the antioxidant response of cells, quantified through the expression of the HO-1 gene (emissions with traditional fuel have slightly greater effects than with new biofuels). By analyzing the response of the cells one hour after the end of exposure, the activation of the antioxidant response is greatly increased. “The data reported in the article refer only to biofuels but a similar argument can be made for traditional fuel. This increase in response suggests that exposure to emissions triggers acute oxidative processes at the cellular level which, when associated with lung deposition data, trigger a wake-up of attention to the effects of repeated exposures to these emissions over time,” Malaguti and Gualtieri add. The results of this test and experimentation campaign represent an important step in the ongoing studies to reduce the impact on the climate of aviation, which is one of the sectors most interested in the issue of emissions and on which the attention of the international community and the world of research is increasingly focusing. “To reduce the impact of the aviation sector on the climate, therefore, a great effort is needed in the development and testing of fuels from renewable sources to replace, partially or totally, the fossil fuels currently used, but without losing sight of the potential effects on human health, as our study shows”, conclude Malaguti and Gualtieri.
Follow us on our Telegram channel