Sustainability has recently been identified as the greatest challenge facing the modern aviation field. Given the extreme power and energy characteristics of transport-class aircraft today,achieving sustainability goals across the aviation sector is a tremendous challenge when compared to other modes of transportation. Several key energy carriers have emerged, promising an environmentally sustainable aviation future. Those considered here include bio-jet fuel pathways for synthetic kerosene, power-to-liquid pathways for synthetic kerosene, liquid hydrogen, ammonia, liquid natural gas, ethanol, methanol, and battery electric systems, all of which are compared to conventional fossil-derived aviation turbine fuel. However, these alternate energy carriers bring forward significant technoeconomic considerations that must be addressed before such approaches can be viably implemented. These factors include material properties impacting aircraft performance and fuel handling, emissions, cost and scalability, resource and land requirements, and social impacts. The purpose of this review is to provide a summary of current approaches to alternative aviation energy carriers, which includes a discussion of key advantages, challenges, and implications determining the future viability of each approach. It is found that bio-jet fuels, power-to-liquid synthetic kerosene, liquid natural gas, and liquid hydrogen all have technical feasibility and can contribute to improved environmental outcomes. However, hydrocarbon fuels and non-renewable production pathways for carbon-free energy carriers are not viable permanent solutions for a fully sustainable aviation ecosystem. As a result, potential transition scenarios from fossil-derived aviation turbine fuel to synthetic kerosene, with simultaneous development for adoption of liquid hydrogen and battery-electric systems, are recommended.

可持续性最近被认为是现代航空领域面临的最大挑战。鉴于当今运输级飞机的极端功率和能源特性，与其他运输方式相比，实现整个航空业的可持续发展目标是一个巨大的挑战。几种关键的能源载体已经出现，有望实现环境可持续的航空未来。这里考虑的包括合成煤油的生物喷气燃料途径、合成煤油的电转液途径、液氢、氨、液化天然气、乙醇、甲醇和电池电力系统，所有这些都与传统的化石燃料系统进行比较。衍生航空涡轮燃料。然而，这些替代能源载体提出了重要的技术经济考虑因素，在可行地实施这些方法之前必须解决这些问题。这些因素包括影响飞机性能和燃料处理的材料特性、排放、成本和可扩展性、资源和土地需求以及社会影响。本次审查的目的是总结当前替代航空能源载体的方法，其中包括对决定每种方法未来可行性的关键优势、挑战和影响的讨论。研究发现，生物喷气燃料、电液化合成煤油、液化天然气和液氢都具有技术可行性，并有助于改善环境成果。然而，碳氢化合物燃料和无碳能源载体的不可再生生产途径并不是完全可持续的航空生态系统的可行的永久解决方案。因此，建议从化石航空涡轮燃料到合成煤油的潜在过渡方案，同时开发采用液氢和电池电力系统。