Project Summary:

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is critical to reducing emissions from the aviation sector. The European Commission Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy and the legislative initiative ReFuelEU Aviation set ambitious targets on the path to net-zero emissions for the aviation industry. The EU-funded FLITE project consortium plans to build the first-of-its-kind alcohol-to-jet facility in Europe. The 30 000 tonnes per annum pre-commercial scale facility will convert waste-based ethanol to SAF.

The Fuel via Low Carbon Integrated Technology from Ethanol (FLITE) consortium (LanzaTech, SkyNRG, E4tech, RSB, and Fraunhofer) proposes to expand the supply of low carbon jet fuel in Europe by designing, building, and demonstrating an innovative ethanol-based Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ) technology in an ATJ Advanced Production Unit (ATJ-APU). The ATJ-APU will produce jet blendstocks from non-food/non-feed ethanol with over 70% GHG reductions relative to conventional jet. The Project will demonstrate >1000 hours of operations and production of >30,000 metric tonnes of Sustainable Aviation Fuel, and supports the European Advanced Biofuel Flightpath objectives of getting SAFs to the market faster and using 2 million tonnes of aviation biofuels by 2020.

Disclaimer: “Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.” (Art. 17.3).

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 857839.