New ‘world first’ sustainable aviation fuel production facility at Oxford Airport

OXCCU  has opened a new ‘world first’ OX1 Plant which will produce sustainable aviation fuel at London Oxford Airport. The new plant reflects the significant advancements in Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) production and technology. After a decade of research at Oxford University, the plant will use its novel catalyst and reactor design to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen directly to long-chain hydrocarbons. After high conversion and then further selective processes to ensure use as SAF, the fuel is named OX•EFUEL. Operations will begin in September 2024 at the FOAK facility based at London Oxford Airport, which has been designed and operated by OXCCU. The facility will produce 1kg (roughly 1.2L) of fuel a day. OXCCU says this will be the world's first operation of direct conversion of CO2 and H2 to jet fuel range hydrocarbons in a single step. This process will result in minimal oxygenated byproducts using OXCCU’s novel catalyst. Andrew Symes, CEO of OXCCU, said: “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.” The plant will provide key data to OXCCU about the design, build and operations of its 160kg (200L) per day OX2 plant. This will be opened and operated in 2026 at Saltend Chemical Park in Hull. This is part of OXCCU’s strategic scale-up journey. More plants will follow after this. OXCCU has reduced a traditionally multi-step process to just one step in the production of Power-to-Liquid (PtL) production. This avoids having to convert CO2 into CO prior to production. This is a highly electric and energy-intense part, so removing this step leads to a significant reduction in cost allowing greater PtL SAF adoption.