World's 1st hydrogen-to-jet fuel demo plant

August 12, 2024

Carbon capture and utilisation company OXCCU is today celebrating the launch of its first sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) demonstration plant at a site at Oxford Airport. 
 
Dubbed OX1, the plant is set to start operations from next month and will initially produce 1kg of liquid fuel a day. OXCCU said the plant would convert carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2) directly in to long-chain hydrocarbons that can be used in a new SAF, named OX•EFUEL. 
 
The demonstration plant is expected to data which will then inform the design, build, and operations of the company's planned OX2 plant at the Saltend Chemical Park in Hull, which is expected to have production capacity for 160kg of fuel a day. 
 
OXCCU said that unlike other firms working on Power-to-Liquid (PtL) fuels, it has reduced a traditionally multi-step process to a single step, avoiding the need to first convert CO2 to CO. It added that by removing the need for additional energy intensive processes it was able to reduce the cost of PtL SAFs, easing one of the main barriers to the adoption of the technology. 
 
Advocates of PtL or e-fuels maintain that they can deliver huge emissions savings compared to conventional jet fuels, while providing a means to scale up SAF production without ramping up demand for biomass-based feedstocks. The nascent industry also has the potential to improve the economics of carbon capture projects by providing a market for captured CO2. 
 
Andrew Symes, CEO of OXCCU, said the company was "beyond excited to launch the OX1 plant, located close to where OXCCU was born". 
 
"The fuel we've already made in a single step from CO2 in the lab has created great excitement with its potential to massively reduce the cost of SAF, but the scale up is key, and this plant will generate the data and litres of fuel we need," he added. "Our mission is to enable future generations to fly without a climate impact, and to do that we need cost-effective PtL SAF. This launch marks a key step in achieving that goal."