Chinese scientists are moving technology that converts greenhouse gases into aviation fuel out of the laboratory and towards large-scale production.

Global jet fuel prices surged to US$175 a barrel in March – a year-on-year leap of 94.4 per cent – and broke through the US$200 mark in April, more than doubling the cost from a year earlier. Fuel costs have forced airlines to cancel flights.

As energy prices spiked amid the war on Iran, a team from the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) unveiled an industrial pathway for turning carbon dioxide into jet fuel.

Their study – published on April 15 in ACS Catalysis, a flagship journal in the field – focuses on turning carbon dioxide directly into long-chain chemicals that can be made into jet fuel.

The process resembles running combustion backwards: waste gas meets water, and the reaction reassembles the molecules into an energy-dense liquid fuel.

For years this chemical process has been held back by two stubborn obstacles: carbon chains struggle to grow, and the ability to target the most valuable long-chain products remains low.