Solar jet fuel has been used for the first time in civil aviation

In a bid to truly harness the power of the sun, Swiss clean tech startup company Synhelion has managed to use ‘solar fuel’ in a jet for its first civil aviation flight.

The world has been relentlessly trying to reduce the carbon footprint of vehicles for decades.

Electric vehicles were always going to be the first step. But even the EVs have to be charged, and this currently creates a ton of emissions.

However, one company in Switzerland has now created a ‘zero-emission’ solar fuel. And it just powered a commercial jet from Hamburg to Zurich.

Swiss clean tech company Synhelion creates history with first civil aviation flight powered by the sun

Hot off the back of its first-ever drive with solar fuel, Synhelion has aimed for the stars and has now flown through the skies with an ultra-low emission civil aviation jet flight.

The Swiss company has been making solar fuel in partnership with Swiss International Airlines for five years. And it’s just used synthetic crude oil to power its first commercial flight.

The groundbreaking fuel powered a German jet from Hamburg to Zurich – a one-hour and 25-minute journey – which touched down on July 24 as a resounding success.

The solar fuel is essentially made by heating mirrors to over 1,500 degrees Celsius and evaporating water and carbon dioxide to make ‘syngas’, which can be liquidized.

It recycles carbon dioxide and, depending on the way that it’s used, can be free of emissions.

Can Solar fuel be the answer to eliminating vehicles’ huge carbon footprint?

Tech wizards around the world have been turning to the sun’s power to help reduce the damage that vehicles can cause to the planet.

Whether it’s by using new solar film to power EVs, deploying huge areas of solar panels on parking lots to make EV charging cheaper and cleaner, or even farming the sun in space, there’s an abundance of new initiatives.

But, car manufacturers may be looking towards this new fuel alternative as a saving grace from electric vehicles, as it may be that the combustion engines could be run in a very eco-friendly way.

It’s not the only climate-saving fuel alternative on the market, with Japan also creating a plant-powered oil that is perfect for racing, and hydrogen pumps now becoming quite a normal thing to find in the US.

But, considering that we’re never going to run out of sun to use, solar fuel might be the winning ticket to saving the world from vehicle pollution.

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