Impacts of alternative fuels in aviation on microphysical aerosol properties and predicted ice nuclei concentration at aircraft cruise altitude

Abstract:

In the past decades air traffic has been substantially growing affecting air quality and climate. According to the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO), in the next few years world passenger and freight traffic is expected to increase annually by 6-7% and 4-5%, respectively. One possibility to reduce aviation impacts on the atmosphere and climate might be the replacement of fossil fuels by alternative fuels. However, so far the effects of alternative fuels on particle emissions from aircraft engines and their ability to form contrails remain uncertain.

To study the effects of alternative fuels on particle emissions and the formation of contrails, the Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails and Cruise Emissions (ACCESS) field experiment was conducted in California. In May 2014, the DLR Falcon 20 and the NASA HU-25 jet aircraft were instrumented with an extended aerosol and trace gas payload probing different types of fuels including JP-8 and JP-8 blended with HEFA (Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids) while the NASA DC8 aircraft acted as the source aircraft for ACCESS-2. Emission measurements were taken in the DC8 exhaust plumes at aircraft cruise level between 9-12 km altitude and at distances between 50 m and 20 km behind the DC8 engines.

Here, we will present results from the ACCESS-2 aerosol measurements which show a 30-60% reduction of the non-volatile (mainly black carbon) particle number concentration in the aircraft exhaust for the HEFA-blend compared to conventional JP-8 fuel. Size-resolved particle emission indices show the largest reductions for larger particle sizes suggesting that the HEFA blend contains fewer and smaller black carbon particles. We will combine the airborne measurements with a parameterization of deposition nucleation developed during a number of ice nucleation experiments at the AIDA chamber in Karlsruhe and discuss the impact of alternative fuels on the abundance of potential ice nuclei at cruise conditions.