China’s Comac tests SAF on regional, passenger aircraft

State-owned aerospace manufacture Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) announced that it has successfully tested sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) on regional jet ARJ21 and large passenger aircraft C919.

The company said that SAF utilised in the flight was produced from used cooking oil (UCO) collected from restaurants. The raw material was processed by Sinopec at its Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Company’s industrial facility into SAF.

The manufacturer said that the flights, which departed from Shanghai Pudong Airport and Dongying Airport in Shandong, lasted over an hour and showed excellent performance on SAF.

According to reports, Chines biofuel firms have invested more than $1bn to develop projects for the production of SAF in the country.

There are currently eight SAF projects under develop across China with a total production capacity of nearly 2.5m tonnes per annum.