Scientists turn tomato waste into climate-friendly jet fuel to cut aviation emissions

European scientists, coordinated by Austria’s Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), have initiated the ToFuel project to convert tomato processing waste into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as part of efforts to reduce aviation carbon emissions. Supported by the EU with a budget of approximately USD 4.1 million, this four-year initiative aims to develop a climate-neutral biorefinery that transforms tomato residues—such as leaves, stems, peels, seeds, and spoiled fruit—into jet fuel while producing valuable by-products like fertilizer, animal feed, and nutritional oil. Tomato pomace could potentially supply about 3% of Europe’s SAF demand by 2030, leveraging the large volumes of residual biomass generated from the EU’s annual production of 17 megatons of tomatoes. The project explores two advanced processing methods: extrusion, which breaks down biomass for fermentation into lipid-rich oils, and hydrothermal liquefaction, which converts wet biomass into bio-oil and biochar. These intermediate products are purified