Haffner Energy launches SB-HEFA process to convert solid biomass into renewable diesel, SAF
Haffner Energy announced Sept. 22 the launch of its solid biomass to hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (SB-HEFA) process for producing renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) based on its proprietary thermolysis technology, which directly converts solid biomass into liquid without going through syngas.
With feedstock available at less than 20 percent of the cost of the oils used in hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) and HEFA pathways, together with what Haffner Energy said is “a very short industrial process chain and improved energy efficiency,” the company is targeting an approximately 50 percent reduction in the levelized cost of production.
Haffner Energy said its thermolysis technology already generates oil, which is immediately converted into noncondensable gases in the process used to produce syngas, hydrogen, methane or methanol.
The SB-HEFA process eliminates the reforming step used to convert the oil into gas, according to Haffner Energy.
Instead, the thermolysis oil is extracted and stabilized through immediate cooling, before undergoing filtration followed by hydrodeoxygenation using proven technologies from the HEFA industry.
“The strength of SB-HEFA lies in combining our existing core technology with a simple, already industrialized conversion chain,” said Philippe Haffner, chairman and CEO of Haffner Energy. “By radically transforming the economics of renewable diesel and SAF, SB-HEFA creates the conditions for their large-scale deployment. This represents a paradigm shift for both markets.”
According to Haffner Energy, several major players in the aviation ecosystem have already entered into discussions with the company regarding its SB-HEFA process.
Haffner Energy said it will initially focus on the renewable diesel market for industrial development of its SB-HEFA process, which, according to the company, is subject to significantly fewer technical and regulatory constraints than SAF, enabling faster market access.
Haffner Energy plans to commission a first complete industrial demonstrator as early as 2027-’28, while nonhydrotreated oil can already be produced today at its Marolles site in France.
“The main challenge facing SAF today is economics,” said Marcella Franchi, Haffner Energy’s business-development director. “The key is to overcome the barrier of its high cost while broadening access to sustainable feedstocks that are available at scale. SB-HEFA is specifically designed to address both challenges—to bring the cost of SAF significantly closer to that of fossil kerosene, thereby making the blending targets set by governments and international institutions achievable.”
Haffner Energy said it intends to initiate the ASTM qualification process for the SB-HEFA pathway to SAF production, drawing in particular on the precedent set by HC-HEFA, the first pathway to benefit from the ASTM D4054 accelerated evaluation process prior to its incorporation into ASTM D7566.
The objective is to enable the commercial deployment of SB-HEFA in aviation from 2030.
