The South African Airways Group (SAA) operated Africa’s first sustainable Biofuel flights.The SAA and Mango flights on Boeing 737-800s between Johannesburg and Cape Town made history as the first sustainable biofuel flights to have taken place on the African continent. The flights used home-grown feedstock from the Marble Hall area in the Limpopo region of South Africa as part of Project Solaris, a biofuels project named after the energy tobacco plant used. The nicotine-free, hybridised tobacco plant lends itself to the production of biofuel as the Solaris plant produces small leaves and prodigious flowers and seeds that are crushed to extract a vegetable crude oil. The Solaris plant is ideally suited for this purpose as the remaining seedcake is used as a high protein animal feed supplement that also contributes to food security.
The first Solaris crop, comprising 50 hectares, was produced and harvested in December 2014 by Sunchem SA, from where the seed oils were extracted through crushing the seeds produced by the plants. The plant then produces additional flowers and seeds which are harvested a few months later. The seedcake remaining after the crushing can be utilised for animal feed as it is high in proteins and the oil extracted is then available for refining into a biofuel.
“The project has brought economic and rural development to the Limpopo province in keeping with SAA’s mandate to support the South African National Developmental Plan. It establishes a new regional bio jet fuel supply chain of which we can rightfully be proud. SAA as a leading African and global airline is a trailblazer when it comes to environmental and social sustainability in Africa,” says Musa Zwane, SAA’s Acting CEO.
Based on the press release by South African Airways
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