UK start-up Zero Petroleum is working on its first commercial-scale plant after claiming to have proven the chemistry of a green hydrogen-based 100% replica of A-1 jet fuel.
The undisclosed facility recently had a pre-front-end engineering design (FEED) completed by Technip Energies and will produce a synthetic fuel Zero Petroleum claims could be used as the sole propellant for jet-engined aircraft.
According to the company, the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), created by combining green hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO2) through Zero Petroleum’s Fischer-Tropsch synthesis process at its Oxford research facility, could eliminate the 50% blending limit applied to most SAF.
It was produced at the firm’s pre-commercial Plant Zero.1 facility near Oxford, which features direct air capture equipment for CO2 sourcing, an electrolyser powered by solar energy for green hydrogen, and the company’s DirectFT synthesis platform.
Jet A-1 is particularly difficult to reproduce because it is a mixture of hundreds of hydrocarbons to balance more than 70 chemical and physical properties, including density, freezing point, viscosity, thermal stability, and electrical characteristics.
Many SAF production methods make fuels that lack some of the components found in fossil jet fuel, meaning they may burn similarly but behave differently in aircraft fuel systems.
The company said testing by assurance firm Intertek confirmed the major properties of its synthetic fuel fell within the ranges found in conventional Jet A-1.
Work on the fuel was backed by the UK SAF Clearing House, and the new facility’s pre-FEED benefitted from £3.5m ($4.1m) awarded through the Department for Transport’s (DFT) Advanced Fuels Fund grant.
While Zero Petroleum did not outline a timeline for the site’s construction, it said it is now “poised for commercial scale-up.”
It comes as the UK’s hydrogen aviation sector continues to garner steady public and private support as innovators strive to facilitate meeting UK SAF mandates dictating 10% of jet fuel supplied to the UK aviation market to be sustainable by 2030.
The DFT recently allocated £3.6m ($4.8m) across four hydrogen-based aviation projects while in January, the government invested £43m ($58m) in green flight projects, a move praised by the Hydrogen in Aviation Alliance, which more recently injected £188m ($252m) into UK hydrogen aviation research.
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