Title: Making Sustainable Aviation Fuel More Budget-Friendly: The Swiss Startup's Mission
With the surge in demand for sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), airlines are grappling with prohibitive costs and a scarcity to meet their carbon neutrality pledges. Enter Metafuels, a Swiss startup, who believe their innovative technology could be the game-changer. Based at Switzerland's largest research hub for natural and engineering sciences - the Paul Scherrer Institute in Würenlingen - Metafuels are working on a pilot project and demo plant that uses e-methanol to produce e-SAFs.
What sets Metafuels apart is their production process. Unlike the majority of SAF manufacturers who often employ the Fischer-Tropsch process, Metafuels opted for an alternative pathway in 2021 - methanol synthesis. This method either involves producing methanol from carbon monoxide and hydrogen at high pressure using zinc oxide and copper as catalysts, or utilizing an existing sustainable methanol feedstock and subsequently synthesizing jet fuel from methanol. Metafuels' process includes additional steps and the use of a catalyst to convert methanol to SAF selectively and efficiently, a service they claim to excel at.
Metafuels' laboratory pilot has been successful, and their demo plant is all set to go at the same site. The co-founders, Saurabh Kapoor and Leigh Hackett, boast that the production cost of their e-SAF will likely be around 50% lower and yield 80% higher compared to the Fischer-Tropsch process under similar conditions.
Metafuels has a multinational team of 12 specialists, and high-level collaboration from PSI led by Marco Ranocchiari, head of the Energy Systems Integration platform - a test facility for sustainable energy sources of the future. They are utilising AspenTech's digital twin technology, rigorous monitoring, data collection, and analytics to fine-tune their plant technology and e-SAF product, which they've labeled as Aerobrew.
Their laboratory currently produces a liter of Aerobrew each day, while the demo plant has the capability to generate 50 liters a day. Hackett is optimistic about Aerobrew's replacement potential for conventional jet fuel across aircraft types and distances. Their ultimate ambition is to achieve a single e-SAF production train of up to 2,000 tons a day, making their offering highly scalable.
Metafuels is on the verge of commercialization with a proven product and process underpinning Aerobrew. They secured a capital raising round of $9 million in December 2024, followed by an $8 million raise in 2023 and a $5 million grant from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy.
Underpinning their project development phase, Metafuels has begun early offtake discussions, including potential collaborations with airlines, fuel suppliers, airports, and corporate travelers. The startup is also exploring licensing their technology, with a focus on building e-SAF plants and participating in seed projects with decent chances of success.
Metafuels' objective is to serve as a low-cost e-SAF provider, enablers of affordable aviation decarbonization. With the airline industry's need to lower emissions, we can expect to see Metafuels projects or technology in multiple geographies in the near future.
- Leigh Hackett, chairman of Metafuels, and Saurabh Kapoor, the CEO and co-founder of Metafuels, believe that their innovative technology can significantly reduce the production cost and increase the yield of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) compared to the Fischer-Tropsch process.
- Metafuels, based at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, is working on a pilot project and demo plant that uses e-methanol to produce sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), which they refer to as e-SAFs.
- Saurabh Kapoor and Leigh Hackett, the co-founders of Metafuels, have boasted that their e-SAF production process could be 50% cheaper and yield 80% more than the Fischer-Tropsch process under similar conditions.
- Metafuels is utilizing AspenTech's digital twin technology to fine-tune their plant technology and e-SAF product, which they've labeled as Aerobrew.
- Metafuels has secured significant funding and is currently engaged in early offtake discussions with potential partners in the aviation industry, such as airlines, fuel suppliers, airports, and corporate travelers, to commercialize their Aerobrew e-SAF.
