From Laboratory to Commercial-Scale SAF Plant

LanzaJet’s Director of Strategic Partnerships Daniel Bloch contributed an article for Decarbonisation Technology magazine that traces LanzaJet’s 15-year journey from laboratory to the world’s first commercial-scale ATJ facility.

Check out an excerpt from his piece below:

It is important to remember that the industry only started adoption and scaling of SAF in very recent years. In 2019, it was estimated that global volumes sat at just 25 million litres. Fast forward to 2025, and this figure has grown to 2.5 billion litres, representing a 100x increase in just six years. While this figure still represents only 0.7% of current total jet fuel demand, this rate of change is profound and will only continue along this trajectory. 

That said, the industry is currently on the verge of a tipping point. To date, SAFs have predominantly been sourced from a mature technology that creates fuel from waste fats and lipids, such as used cooking oil from industrial kitchens. The problem is that this bio-oil conversion pathway, known as hydrotreatment of fatty acids and esters (HEFA), will reach a plateau caused by the availability of sustainable waste oils to process into fuel. 

While HEFA will continue to play an important role going forward, its volumes will soon plateau at a maximum annual threshold, which, when stretched out to 2050, may account for only 5 – 10% of overall SAF volume needs. Adding to the challenge, while there are several other operationally approved SAF production pathways that can leverage alternative sources of waste or feedstocks, none have yet delivered volumes of fuel at a commercial scale. 

To distil this down into a very clear takeaway: the airline industry’s emission reduction strategy is largely dependent on a suite of green, breakthrough, first-of-a-kind (FOAK) technologies to deliver its all-important net-zero 2050 goal. In turn, the industry has been on the lookout for pioneering companies seeking to successfully deliver the next commercially scaled SAF production pathway. 

LanzaJet’s Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ) solution is a fully certified SAF pathway, leveraging ethanol as its input, which can be produced from virtually any form of non-fossil, hydrocarbon waste stream.

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For Daniel’s full article in Decarbonisation Technology’s August issue, click the link here.