Sustainable Aviation Fuel-SAF —From Frying Pan to Flight Path: 2025

Sustainable Aviation Fuel-SAF

Think about this: the same oil that fries your pakoras, samosas, and jalebis today could be fueling an airplane tomorrow! Crazy, right? But India is making it real. With waste edible oil (used cooking oil) now being transformed into Sustainable Aviation Fuel -SAF, our skies might soon carry the aroma of a greener future.

This is not just science fiction; it’s the hottest recipe India’s energy sector is cooking up—literally turning kitchen waste into jet power.

🍳 What Exactly is Waste Edible Oil?

Every time oil is reused in frying, it breaks down, gets darker, and becomes unsafe for health. Restaurants, hotels, sweet shops, and canteens generate thousands of litersliters of this used cooking oil every day. Instead of illegally recycling it back into food (a major health risk), India is now collecting it to make aviation-grade green fuel.

🌍 India’s Ocean of Waste Oil

India produces millions of tons of used cooking oil every year. From roadside fryers sizzling pakoras to mega kitchen chains cooking for thousands, the supply is endless. The only trick? Collecting it in an organized way so it reaches refineries instead of food plates.

🏭 How Does Frying Oil Become Jet Fuel?

Here’s the recipe for turning greasy oil into something that can lift a 200-ton airplane:

1. Collection & Pre-cleaning – Hotels, restaurants, canteens, and snack factories hand over their used oil. It is filtered and cleaned.
2. Refinery Magic—The—The oil goes through hydroprocessing (a hi-tech chemical treatment) and comes out as crystal-clear jet fuel.
3. Blending—This SAF is mixed with regular jet fuel in safe proportions (usually 1–5% today, rising to 50% in the future).
4. Ready to Fly—Once certified, it is pumped straight into aircraft tanks. No modifications to planes are needed.

🛫 Airlines Already Onboard

India is not just dreaming—it’s already flying on oil waste!

• SpiceJet stunned the world with India’s first biojet flight a few years ago.
• Vistara carried passengers on an SAF blend flight.
• IndiGo flew an Airbus delivery powered by cooking oil-based fuel.
• Air India has signed up with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to use SAF for its flights, ensuring a steady transition to green skies.

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⚙ IOC’s Big Move

Indian Oil’s Panipat refinery is about to become India’s SAF hub. With a capacity to churn out 30,000–35,000 tonnes of SAF every year, this refinery will turn waste oil into aviation-grade fuel starting 2025–26. This will mark the beginning of large-scale SAF production in India, and more refineries are expected to follow.

📊 Blending Targets for India

The government has laid out a roadmap:

• 2027: Start with 1% SAF blend in international flights.
• 2028: Increase to 2%.
• 2030: Aim for a 5% SAF blend in aviation fuel.

This may sound small, but even a few percent cut in jet fuel emissions means a massive reduction in aviation’s carbon footprint.

🌟 Advantages: Why SAF from Waste Oil is a Game-Changer

• Green Skies: Up to 80% fewer carbon emissions compared to fossil jet fuel.
• No Extra Cost for Airlines:Works in existing aircraft without modifications.
• Double Benefit: Cleans up waste oil from the food chain and turns it into clean fuel.
• Energy Independence: India reduces dependency on imported crude.
• Health & Safety: Stops dangerous re-entry of used oil into cooking.

⚠ Challenges on the Runway

• Collection Headache: Small vendors and households make it tough to capture all used oil.
• Quality Variations: Oil from fries, samosas, and jalebis differs in quality—refineries must spend more to clean it up.
• Scaling Up: Demand for aviation fuel is huge, and current SAF capacity is still tiny.
• Blend Limits: Global standards allow blending up to 50%, so full replacement isn’t possible yet.

The Hidden World of Waste Oil in India

• Street food vendors alone generate a huge chunk of UCO (used cooking oil). Think of every pakora stall, jalebi cart, or roadside bhajiya vendor—each one adds to India’s untapped oil reservoir.
• During festive seasons (Diwali, Holi, and Eid), sweet shops and halwais consume gigantic quantities of oil for frying. This results in temporary spikes of waste oil, which could be harvested for SAF production.

💡 Fun Fact: The Jet-Powered Pakora

• Just 1 liter of UCO can be converted into 0.8 liters of SAF.
• A typical Delhi-Mumbai flight consumes ~12,000 liters of jet fuel. That means roughly the oil from 15,000 samosa batches could power one such flight!

🏆 Global Angle

• Countries like the US, EU, and Singapore are already making SAF at scale using UCO. India has an advantage: it’s the world’s largest consumer of edible oil, which naturally makes it the world’s largest potential generator of UCO.
• Some European airports already supply airlines with up to 5% SAF blends daily. India plans to catch up fast.

📈 Market Potential

• India consumes about 8 million tonnes of aviation fuel annually. Even a 5% SAF blend means 400,000 tonnes of SAF will be needed every year by 2030.
• IOC’s first refinery at Panipat will make ~35,000 tonnes per year, meaning India will need at least 10 more such plants to meet its targets.
• That creates massive investment opportunities for private companies and startups in the SAF ecosystem.

🛫 Airline Branding Opportunity

• Airlines that adopt SAF early can market themselves as eco-friendly pioneers. Imagine booking a ticket and seeing, “This flight runs partly on recycled cooking oil!”
• Globally, airlines like KLM and United already highlight SAF flights as part of their green branding. Indian airlines will follow.

💰 Economics of SAF from UCO

• Currently, SAF costs 2–3 times more than fossil jet fuel, mainly because of small-scale production and tricky UCO collection.
• But as IOC and others scale up, cost parity will get closer. India’s huge edible oil consumption means feedstock will never be in shortage; only organization is needed.

🔮 Future Twist: Not Just Planes!

• The same technology that converts UCO into jet fuel can also produce renewable diesel for trucks and ships.
• That means tomorrow, the oil from your street samosa could be driving both trucks on highways and planes in the sky—a complete waste-to-fuel revolution.

✨In short: Waste edible oil is not just a fuel—it’s a national resource waiting to be tapped. India’s kitchens, street food stalls, and sweet shops could together power a cleaner aviation industry while giving us pride in saying, “Our pakoras don’t just fill stomachs, they fuel the skies!”

🔮 Future Outlook

By 2030, India wants 5% SAF in its aviation mix. That may sound modest, but it’s a giant leap considering our aviation sector’s size. With airlines already testing flights and IOC gearing up production, India could become a leader in waste-to-fuel innovation.

Imagine a future where every pakora, samosa, or jalebi fried today helps power the planes of tomorrow. That’s not just sustainability—it’s poetic justice!