The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) has developed a technology to produce aviation fuel from high-concentration organic waste liquid.

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) accounts for less than 1% of aviatic fuel consumption, while aviation fuel generates 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Methane arrested anaerobic digestion (MAAD) technology developed by ANL converts high-concentration organic wastewater into volatile fatty acids and generates SAF.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) has released a low-cost technology for producing SAF. The newly developed technology does not rely on existing resources such as fats and oils, but uses carbon-rich wastewater discharged from breweries and dairy farms as raw materials, so it has the characteristics of reducing the cost of removing organic carbon in wastewater.

Anaerobic digestion is the conversion of biomass into methane and, further, into biomass fuel. MAAD concentrates on the production of fatty acids (usually butyric acid, etc.) and lactic acid. While lactic acid will inhibit the production of SAF from volatile fatty acids, MAAD will effectively overcome this inhibition and boost the yield of fatty acids in the case of lactic acid. In addition to this, ANL has developed electrochemical separation processes to promote membrane MAAD technologies since their research has shown that this manufacturing technology has the potential to mitigate GHG emissions from the aviation industry by up to 70%.