Fueling the Israeli economy: Boeing, Technion jointly develop sustainable aviation fuels
- Technion
- 50 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Technion announced Jan. 27 that Brendan Nelson, the president of Boeing Global, visited Technion in Israel Jan. 26 to mark a milestone in the activities of the Boeing-Technion Innovation Center for Sustainable Aviation Fuel and to launch the implementation phase.
This strategic partnership, the Boeing-Technion SAF Innovation Center, was launched in 2023 to develop sustainable fuels for the aviation industry.
According to the project partners, aviation’s long-term growth will be enabled by producing SAF from feedstocks including green hydrogen and carbon dioxide, and the joint center will advance this process to a level that enables commercial production at a competitive cost.
Nelson, a physician by training, previously held senior positions in the Australian government, including a member of the Australian Parliament, the defense minister, the minister for education and science, and ambassador to Europe.
“In addition to delivering high-quality fuel-efficient airplanes to our customers, Boeing works globally and regionally to enhance energy security, support the growth of the civil aviation industry and create new economic opportunities through sustainable aviation fuel and other technologies,” Nelson said during his visit to Technion. “We are pleased to partner with Technion and other stakeholders in the SAF Innovation Center to support Israel’s aerospace industry.”
Technion President Uri Sivan added, “This is a historic collaboration of national importance for the state of Israel. The partnership with the global aviation leader, Boeing, is, for us, a vote of confidence in the Technion, its researchers and our technological capabilities. Through this collaboration, Technion experts are taking on a tremendous mission: to develop technologies for producing clean fuels through sustainable processes, thereby making a significant contribution to aviation—and no less importantly, to human health and the environment. I do not doubt that we will meet this challenge, just as we have met many others over the past hundred years.”
Ido Nehushtan, the president of Boeing Israel, said, “Boeing has been active in Israel since before the establishment of the state and serves as an important supplier to El Al and the Israeli Air Force. Israeli industries are now key suppliers to Boeing, and many Israeli systems are integrated into the company’s products worldwide. Boeing has continued to deepen its research and development ties with academia and industry in Israel, as well as its investments in the high-tech sector.”
Nehushtan added that the collaboration between Technion and Boeing will pave the way for the development of Israel’s most advanced technologies and capabilities, which will be integrated into future generations of aerospace systems around the world.
The Boeing-Technion partnership was initiated by Boeing and includes partners from across the industry and government in Israel.
The Israeli government has provided measures and financial support to accelerate the Israeli SAF industry, which include Israel’s ministry of innovation, science and technology establishing the ISAF research consortium and the Israel Innovation Authority launching SAF-IL, which is an incubation program for Israeli startups dealing with SAF development.
To lead this groundbreaking vision for the development of SAF, Boeing partnered with Professor Gidi Grader of the Technion’s Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering to establish the center, which has now completed its proof-of-concept phase.
As part of the partnership, 11 Technion faculty members and dozens of doctoral students from five different faculties are working on various aspects of aviation fuel production, including efficient and competitive manufacturing; theoretical aspects of catalytic reactions and fuel combustion; safety considerations; full-lifecycle analysis; and the establishment and operation of an experimental fuel-testing facility at Technion, which will be only the second of its kind in the world.
The announcement of the Boeing-Technion partnership was originally planned for October 2023.
Despite the events of Oct. 7 and the war that followed, the decision was made to continue with the technical work, as Nelson explained several months later.
“We launched this initiative, a project of resilience and innovation in the spirit of the Jewish people and the state of Israel, shortly after the horrific Oct. 7 attack,” Nelson said. “When I met the prime minister a few months earlier, I told him that if there is one country in the world capable of solving civil aviation’s emissions challenge, it is Israel, led by the Technion—the Israeli MIT.”
Now, two years later, following the completion of the initial feasibility phase, senior Boeing executives were presented with the progress achieved to date, and the second phase of the initiative was launched—the development of SAF produced from green hydrogen and carbon dioxide, and the advancement of the process to a level that will enable competitive commercial production.
