Innovative Process Integration for CO2 conversion to SAF
Flying with recycled air
Aviation generates 14% of Europe’s transport-related CO2 emissions, making it the second-largest source of transport pollution. As a hard-to-abate sector, aviation will continue to depend on liquid fuels. Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) are critical to decarbonizing air travel.
The e-SAF project is reimagining jet fuel: using renewable electricity, water, and captured CO2 to create sustainable aviation fuels that can dramatically reduce emissions and align aviation with Europe’s climate ambitions.
From Carbon to Clean Flight: Why e-SAF Matters
Through integrated plasma-assisted CO2 conversion with Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and via advanced electrocatalytic pathways to ethylene and ethanol, coupled with oligomerization to jet fuels, e-SAF integrates cutting-edge chemistry and engineering to produce efficient, low-carbon liquid fuels for tomorrow’s aircrafts.
Our Mission
Simulations reveal impressive potential: e-SAF could produce fuel with significantly lower energy demand and much higher carbon efficiency, nearly doubling the energy efficiency of today’s state-of-the-art technologies.
Objective 1: Improve conversion and selectivity by catalyst and process optimization for all steps.
Objective 2: Integrate individual processes into an overall carbon- and energy-efficient process.
Objective 3: Understand and optimize the impact of the internal recycle streams and of associated impurities on the carbon and energy efficiency of the overall process.
Objective 4: Identify and quantify the main drivers of the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions and of the production costs for the novel SAF routes.
Funded by
Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Strategic Basic Research programme (FWO-SBO).
Advisory Board
The project is supported by an advisory board covering the entire value chain: Sasol, Shell, Uplift-International, SkyNRG, Smart Delta Resources, Saint-Gobain, TotalEnergies, Worley, D-CRBN, and Oxylum.
