XFuel secures investment from European Innovation Council

XFuel announced April 8 that it has secured 7.7-million euros (USD$8.4 million) in blended finance from the European Innovation Council, helping the company bring its fuel-from-waste technology to transport markets. 

XFuel has developed proprietary conversion and refining technologies that can produce what it says is cost-competitive, low-carbon drop-in fuels for the transport sector.

The sustainable fuels are produced from a variety of scalable waste materials, with a focus on industrial hydrocarbons and biomass residues. 

Their drop-in nature indicates they meet fossil-fuel specifications and performance, making them fully compatible with existing combustion engines and fossil-fuel infrastructure and allowing for direct replacement today.

These fuels require no capital expenditure and significantly reduced operational costs by owners when compared to other decarbonization options in the industry, XFuel stated.  

XFuel said it has developed two novel technologies that produce high-grade transport fuel:

• Chemical liquid refining (CLR), which can refine and crack hydrocarbon liquids and residues into ultra-clean drop-in transport fuels for marine, road and aviation sectors.

• Mechanical carbon conversion (MECC), which coprocesses lignocellulosic waste biomass and waste oils to produce low-carbon transport fuels and biochar.  

XFuel said the EIC funding enables the progression of its CLR technology to market, an innovation designed to convert hydrocarbon waste into ultra-clean, low-carbon fuel.

The immediate focus is on delivering sludge-derived marine gasoil (MGO) grade fuel, with anticipated greenhouse-gas emissions savings of up to 85 percent under the EU RED II framework for recycled carbon fuels.

“XFuel has developed unique and innovative technology to deliver our long-term vision to provide sustainable fuels for heavy-transport sectors,” said Nicholas Ball, the CEO and founder of XFuel. “We see many organizations seeking good value and the sustainable disposal of their waste, while transport-fuel offtakers are urgently seeking affordable, low-carbon fuel, not least as regulations tighten and the cost of carbon starts to bite. With the EIC award, we can now strive to bridge this gap and unlock a viable solution to decarbonize these hard-to-abate sectors starting today. This is a major milestone in our mission to scale our low-carbon fuel solutions across Europe and beyond.” 

XFuel said it has already signed memorandums of understanding and letters of intent with “high-profile” offtakers in the maritime sector, including world-leading container lines and towage-solutions providers.