CO2 to jetfuel

Air Company's Chief Technology Officer Stafford Sheehan, pictured left, and CEO Gregory Constantine (Air Company)

From Canary Media

The startup Air Company first made a splash three years ago by distilling vodka using captured carbon dioxide. At a converted nightclub in Brooklyn, New York, the company built a maze of tubes and tanks to turn the greenhouse gas into spirits — no grains or potatoes required. Since then, Air Company has tweaked its technology to produce another coveted, crystal-clear liquid: sustainable aviation fuel.

On Thursday, during Climate Week NYC, the startup unveiled a second, larger chemical reactor in Brooklyn. Air Company is now making small batches of CO2-derived jet fuel, including a 5-gallon order for the U.S. Air Force, which recently used the fuel to fly a large drone in northern Florida.

Still, Air Company will need to scale its production exponentially if it’s going to fulfill its latest tall orders.

JetBlue, Virgin Atlantic and other aviation firms have agreed to buy 1 billion gallons of Air Company’s sustainable aviation fuel over the next decade, the companies said this week. The announcement follows a $30 million investment round in April led by Carbon Direct Capital Management and including JetBlue’s and Toyota’s venture capital arms, which brought Air Company’s total funding to $40 million.

“Our technology and the products that we make are really a stepping stone to get to massive commodities,” said Gregory Constantine, CEO of Air Company. Along with vodka, the startup makes perfume and hand sanitizer using carbon dioxide captured from beverage manufacturing plants, which produce waste gases during fermentation.

“From a decarbonization point of view, [aviation] is where we can have the most climate impact,” he told Canary Media.

The global aviation industry contributes more than 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions every year, a share that’s expected to soar as passenger air travel grows. Many aviation analysts agree that sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, will play a key role in reducing emissions from long-haul flights and larger aircraft. Batteries and hydrogen, meanwhile, are expected to power mainly short-haul and regional flights.

Airlines currently use minuscule amounts of sustainable aviation fuel: about 26 million gallons in 2021, or well below 1 percent of total jet fuel demand. Nearly all existing SAF production uses corn, soybean, animal fats or used cooking oil. As industry demand increases, experts warn that relying on such materials could displace food supplies, drive deforestation or perpetuate industrial animal farming.

The Biden administration aims to increase U.S. production of SAFs to 3 billion gallons per year by 2030 — an effort that recently received an important funding boost under the Inflation Reduction Act. While airlines and aviation experts applauded the law’s SAF provisions, some critics say the policy risks detracting from other, more immediate solutions to reducing emissions from flying, such as improving aircraft fuel efficiency and electrifying airport equipment.

“Rather than putting all our eggs in the basket of sustainable aviation fuels, we need to have a more comprehensive approach,” said John Fleming, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.

On a quiet commercial block in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, Air Company’s leaders showcased the new reactor.

The startup’s technology begins with just two ingredients: carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The latter element is produced on-site using an electrolyzer, a boxy device that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity. A chemical reactor combines the CO2 and hydrogen using a metal catalyst to produce either ethanol (ethyl alcohol) for consumer products, or paraffins — colorless, oily liquids — for sustainable aviation fuel.
Air Company says its new CO2-based aviation fuel has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 97 percent compared to traditional jet fuel. Twelve says its E-Jet product has roughly 90 percent lower life-cycle emissions than conventional jet fuel — a figure that includes the carbon emissions associated with manufacturing solar panels or wind turbines used to power the electrolyzers.

[Another startup, Twelve] uses electricity and catalysts to split CO2 into carbon monoxide and also split H2O into hydrogen. This produces a synthetic gas. (Typically, ​“syngas” is made by burning coal, fossil gas or biomass.) In a second step, Twelve’s syngas is run through a series of chemical reactions known as the Fischer-Tropsch process to create liquid hydrocarbons.

Twelve began producing its first batches of E-Jet a year ago, as part of a pilot program with the U.S. Air Force. The startup is now working to build a much larger plant to produce fuel for its partnership with Alaska Airlines and Microsoft, according to CEO Flanders.