Start-up with clean fuel for the aviation industry

Metafuels, a Swiss technology startup, has announced intentions to build the first commercial-scale sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) factory in the port of Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Turbe project _ Metafuels – Saurabh Kapoor

Saurabh Kapoor, CEO of Metafuels, described the Turbe project as a “huge step” toward large-scale SAF production. Last year, the firm announced intentions to create a comparable facility in Denmark.

“Europe is setting very ambitious decarbonisation targets, but without affordable and scaled SAF production, the aviation industry will struggle to keep up,” Kapoor, the CEO, pointed out.

The Turbe plant will be created in collaboration with liquid energy storage provider Evos and incorporated into Evos’ current facility in Rotterdam, which already has infrastructure in place to store green methanol in bulk.

Metafuels’ “aerobrew” technology

Metafuels’ “aerobrew” technology converts renewable methanol into jet fuel, which the business claims is highly energy efficient and reduces lifecycle emissions by up to 90% compared to traditional jet fuel. The SAF is also “drop-in ready,” which means it does not require any changes to current airplane components or airport infrastructure.

Notably, Turbe can handle both kinds of methanol: Bio-methanol is extracted from bio-waste, whereas E-methanol is created from renewable electricity and collected CO₂. Metafuels’ versatility enables it to react to shifting feedstock supply and restrictions, according to the business.

Producing fuel for commercial airplanes starting in 2028

Mr Kapoor anticipates both plants in the Netherlands and Denmark to begin producing commercial aviation fuel in 2028. However, Metafuels will first need to obtain certification for their aerobrew method, which it hopes to do by the end of the year.

In the first phase, the Turbe factory will create 12,000 liters of SAF every day, with ambitions to raise this tenfold in the second phase. To put that into context, a Boeing 737 Max can carry around 26,000 liters of gasoline for a 6,570-kilometer voyage. However, Metafuels and the aviation industry as a whole still have a long way to go before meeting global and regional targets for SAF adoption.

In 2024, SAF represented for only 0.53% of worldwide aviation fuel consumption. The European Union (EU) intends to raise this figure to 70% by 2050, necessitating an exponential leap in worldwide SAF production.

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