Advances in Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) and Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Pathways for Biodiesel Enhancement

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides a comprehensive mapping of HVO/SAF research trends and identifies system-level challenges for future work.

🏢実務担当者:Useful for fuel producers and airlines to understand technology pathways and feedstock implications for SAF adoption.

🏛政策担当者:Highlights the need for supportive policies on renewable hydrogen and carbon management to enable SAF scale-up.

The decarbonization of transport and aviation sectors requires renewable fuels capable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining compatibility with existing infrastructures. This review examines the technological evolution of renewable liquid fuels from biodiesel (FAME) to hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) and sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), highlighting biodiesel as the industrial and technological foundation upon which the most mature hydrocarbon fuel pathways have been developed. Biodiesel established the feedstock supply chains, processing technologies, quality standards, and regulatory frameworks that subsequently enabled the emergence of HVO and HEFA-SAF. HVO represents a major advancement over biodiesel by converting lipid-based feedstocks into fully deoxygenated paraffinic hydrocarbons through hydrotreatment, thereby overcoming limitations related to stability, fuel quality, and engine compatibility. Building upon similar feedstocks and upgrading principles, SAF extends this evolution toward aviation applications through pathways such as HEFA, Fischer–Tropsch (FT), Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ), and Power-to-Liquid (PtL). The review integrates bibliometric analysis, fuel properties, combustion behavior, emission characteristics, production pathways, and techno-economic considerations. Results show that HVO research is largely focused on fuel upgrading and combustion optimization, whereas SAF research increasingly addresses system-level challenges, including feedstock availability, lifecycle emissions, renewable hydrogen production, and large-scale deployment. This transition reflects a broader shift from fuel-centered optimization to energy-system integration. Ultimately, the analysis suggests that SAF should be understood as the latest stage of a technological trajectory initiated by biodiesel, with future progress dependent on advances in renewable energy, hydrogen infrastructure, carbon management, and supportive policy frameworks.

• Research Square https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202608.0509.v1first seen 2026-08-11 04:21:14