The assembly line of A320 series aircraft at the Airbus (China) Tianjin plant Photo: huanqiu.com

Sinopec Zhenhai Refinery has officially obtained a bio-jet fuel airworthiness certificate issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the Global Times learned on Monday.

The first batch of bio-jet fuel is scheduled to be shipped to the Airbus (China) Tianjin plant this month.

China's first bio-jet fuel plant has an annual designed processing capacity of 100,000 tons. Taking waste catering oil as the raw material, the first batch of biological jet fuel has realized production of more than 600 tons. If the plant runs at full capacity, it can basically digest the "waste oil" recovered from a city with a population of 10 million in one year, the company said.

Compared with traditional petroleum-based aviation kerosene, bio-jet fuel can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 50 percent in the entire life cycle.

This year, the CAAC issued the 14th Five-Year Plan for green development. As the first green development plan in the history of civil aviation in China, it laid down the goals and requirements as well as the main tasks for the green development of civil aviation during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. With a wide variety of themes ranging from "energy conservation and emissions reduction" to "green development," the plan will offer effective guidance for the green, low-carbon and sustainable development of the civil aviation industry in China.

Sinopec said it has been committed to promoting the development of China's bio-jet fuel industry. In 2009, Sinopec developed bio-jet fuel production technology with independent intellectual property rights, and it produced qualified bio-jet fuel for the first time in December 2011. The test flight was successful at Shanghai airport in April 2013.

In 2014, it obtained China's first bio-jet fuel airworthiness certificate. In 2015, a commercial flight from Shanghai to Beijing was carried out on a domestic route using bio-jet fuel. In 2017, a transoceanic flight from Beijing to Chicago was carried out, making China the first country in Asia and the fourth country in the world to conduct independent research and development of bio-jet fuel technology.

Reuters reported in June that Sinopec Zhenhai produced its first aviation fuel from used cooking oil at an industrial-scale facility in East China.