Aether Fuels demonstrates Aurora™ equipment in fully integrated line producing on-spec synthetic aviation fuel
Aether Fuels Inc. announced Sept. 29 the successful construction, commissioning and operation of its fully integrated demonstration line, including the production of synthetic aviation fuel that meets the specifications of ASTM D7566, the international standard for synthetic jet fuel.
The company called the accomplishment a major milestone in the commercialization of its Aether Aurora™ technology platform.
The demonstration line utilized Aether’s 2.5 barrel-per-day (bpd) Aether Aurora Tri-Converter and Aurora Upgrader units, integrated together with RTI’s existing Fischer-Tropsch reactor.
The fuel was produced using mass-balanced renewable natural gas (RNG) derived from landfill gas generated in Kentucky and industrial CO2 as feedstocks and included the complete conversion process from waste-derived gas feedstocks to fully upgraded synthetic liquid jet fuel.
“Aether is believed to be the first company in North America to produce ASTM-specification synthetic aviation fuel from mass-balanced RNG and captured industrial CO2 at this scale,” the company stated.
Independent third-party testing conducted by AmSpec confirmed that the fuel samples produced during this demo run met the applicable ASTM specifications for Fischer-Tropsch synthesized paraffinic kerosene (Annex A1 for FT-SPK).
Under the ASTM D7566 standard, alternative fuels meeting this specification are approved for blending with conventional kerosene up to 50 percent without requiring modifications to existing aircraft tanks, pipelines or airport-fueling systems.
Additionally, because the FT-SPK route is already approved, no new ASTM certification is required, according to Aether.
“This demonstration proves Aether’s ability to scale up our integrated Aurora platform, take a feedstock through the complete end-to-end process, and produce on-spec synthetic aviation fuel,” said Dhaval Shah, the chief technology officer of Aether Fuels. “It is the culmination of over a year of hard work by Aether’s R&D team and is a tremendous milestone. Just as importantly, the data from this demonstration informs and de-risks the design of our 50 bpd Project Beacon plant in Singapore, as we continue rapid journey to large-scale commercial deployment.”
The demonstration builds on Aether’s previous standalone demonstration of the Tri-Converter unit with GTI Energy and represents the latest step in Aether’s progression from the lab to commercial deployment.
The company added that the demo also represents important technical validation ahead of Project Beacon, Aether’s planned 2,000-metric-ton-per-year (50 bpd) commercial project in Singapore.
Aether said it has a pipeline of large commercial projects under development that will follow Project Beacon and produce ASTM D7566-compliant sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) with lifecycle greenhouse-gas emissions reductions of over 70 percent compared with conventional fossil jet fuel.
“This is exciting progress for Aether as we march forward towards commercial deployment,” said Conor Madigan, CEO and co-founder of Aether Fuels. “We started by systematically demonstrating each part of the Aurora platform at the pilot scale, then scaled our novel technology up more than 50 times in standalone demo units, and in this most recent demonstration, brought these demo units together in an integrated line that produces ASTM-spec jet fuel. This is a significant achievement and puts us on the right track to successfully build and operate Project Beacon and the commercial projects that will follow.”
