Creating sustainable aviation fuel out of thin air using the power of the sun might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but Swiss carbon neutral fuel provider Synhelion is partnering with Lufthansa Group and member airline Swiss to do just that. Its new solar fuel uses water and carbon dioxide as a feedstock, and concentrated sunlight to superheat it to over 1500°C, with the end goal of creating ultra-low-carbon kerosene.
[Intro links: Sustainable aviation fuel |Synhelion | Solar fuel ]
We sat down with Synhelion’s Carmen Murer to discuss how solar fuels work, and what the prospects are for commercialising this technology to a scale where, by 2030, it hopes to manufacture half of Switzerland’s jet fuel demand.
“Solar fuels are a special type of sustainable aviation fuel,” Murer tells us. “Unlike biofuels that are produced from biomass and e-fuels that are produced from renewable electricity, solar fuels are produced with concentrated solar radiation.”
The Synhelion system uses a mirror field to reflect solar radiation onto a receiver that concentrates it and converts it into high-temperature heat for the process. This heat enters the thermochemical reactor to create syngas, which is then converted into fuels using existing technology like the Fischer-Tropsch process. The process can create any standard type of fuel: jet kerosene, gasoline, or diesel fuel.
“We have based our technology on sunlight because the sun is the most abundant and most distributed renewable energy source there is,” Murer explains. “Our technology minimizes the number of energy conversion steps by using the solar heat directly to turn carbon dioxide into fuel, thus maximizing fuel production efficiency. Another huge advantage is that thermal energy storage is much cheaper and environmentally friendlier than battery storage. Thanks to our proprietary thermal energy storage, we can produce fuels around the clock, unlocking synthetic fuel production at a price that is competitive with fossil fuels and more economical than other synthetic fuel technologies.”
Another benefit is that, unlike some processes to create biodiesel from plant feedstock, these plants don’t compete with arable land.
The technology stack behind the process is fascinating, with three areas of innovation around the solar receiver, the thermochemical reactor and the thermal energy storage unit.
“The thermochemical production of solar fuels requires extremely high process temperatures. Our solar technology converts concentrated solar heat into the hottest existing process heat — beyond 1500°C — on the market,” Murer explains. “We solved key challenges in the transformation of solar radiation to process heat and in thermal energy storage. Furthermore, we developed a unique technology to produce syngas.”
As with many promising technologies for sustainable aviation fuel production, a key challenge is the commercialisation pathway.
“Last year, we raised CHF 16 million in our Series B round,” Murer tells us. “We are using this funding to build the world’s first industrial-scale solar fuel plant at Brainergy Park Jülich in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, where we will begin to produce solar jet fuel next year. Our solar fuel production starting in 2023 will produce demo batches to showcase the technology, a few thousand litres.”
Within the 2025 timescale, Synhelion is aiming for 500,000 litres of solar fuel per year, and then a marked rampup by 2030 to 875 million litres — roughly half of what it estimates to be Switzerland’s jet fuel demand.
National airline Swiss and the Lufthansa Group are working with Synhelion on the commercialisation process, particularly around technology, profitability, research, testing, certification and ultimate use of fuels. The plan is for Swiss to become the first customer for this solar fuel.
Author: John Walton
Published 21st April 2022
Feature Image Source: Synhelion
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