【Frontiers in HaiChuan Chemical Technology】New breakthrough in sustainable aviation fuel: CO2 used to \"produce\" green synthetic palm oil
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New breakthrough in sustainable aviation fuel: CO2 used to “produce” green synthetic palm oil. As climate change becomes increasingly severe, the aviation industry is under significant pressure to reduce emissions. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is regarded as one of the key pathways to decarbonizing aviation. However, the large-scale production of SAF still faces multiple challenges, including raw material constraints, high costs, and a limited range of technical approaches. Recently, a technological breakthrough driven by carbon management company LanzaTech, beauty and personal care group Mibelle, and Fraunhofer research institute Fraunhofer IGB holds the potential to bring about a change in this situation. These three companies have successfully used carbon dioxide (CO₂) to produce a substitute for palm oil, a substance that can be used in cosmetics and also holds potential as a new raw material for SAF production. Currently, there are mainly four technical pathways for SAF that hold good development prospects, including: ester and fatty acid hydrogenation processes (HEFA), Fischer-Tropsch synthesis processes (FT or G+FT), alcohol-to-juice synthesis processes (AtJ), and electrochemical liquid production processes (PtL). A report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) shows that HEFA is currently the most mature production process for bioaviation fuels, with over 80% of the current SAF supply relying on this technology. As the first-generation SAF fuel, the key raw materials for HEFA technology come mainly from used cooking oil (UCO), vegetable oil fatty acids (such as palm oil), and animal fats. Among them, palm oil is one of the most widely used vegetable oils in the world, and it is employed extensively in food, cosmetics, cleaners, and biofuels. Its high yield, storage tolerance, and heat resistance make it an irreplaceable raw material in many industrial processes. ASEAN countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand are major producers of palm oil and possess abundant resources. As one of the world’s largest exporters of palm oil, Malaysia has actively promoted the use of palm oil in SAF production. However, the industry is not optimistic about the prospects of palm oil as a raw material for SAF. As a edible oil, palm oil faces the issue of competing with other oils in the food industry ； More importantly, it also faces serious sustainability doubts. The large-scale cultivation of palm oil has led to serious environmental problems, including the deforestation of tropical rainforests, loss of biodiversity, and massive emissions of carbon dioxide. The EU once planned to exclude palm oil, soybean oil, and others from the category of sustainable SAF feedstocks.
Today, this new technology developed by companies such as LanzaTech offers another solution: instead of relying on plant cultivation, it uses captured CO2 as a carbon source to \"ferment\" an alternative to palm oil through microorganisms. This not only breaks the link with deforestation but also enables the recycling of carbon by converting greenhouse gases into valuable products. At the heart of this technology is a biological process called “double fermentation”: carbon dioxide is first converted into alcohol, and then further transformed into fats similar to palm oil. First, LanzaTech uses its patented gas fermentation process to convert CO2 generated from industrial emissions or waste gasification into ethanol. This process is similar to winemaking, except that the raw material is not grain but greenhouse gases. Subsequently, Fraunhofer IGB developed a second fermentation process that uses natural, non-GMO oil yeast to further synthesize the ethanol produced from carbon dioxide into a fat mixture with properties very similar to those of palm oil. The entire process relies entirely on the catalytic action of natural microorganisms, and the final product is expected to replace palm oil in various industrial applications in the future.
What’s even more exciting is that this technology also has potential for application across various industries. In the cosmetics industry, the Mibelle Group has successfully used this alternative fat to develop palm oil-free formulas whose skin care performance is even superior to that of traditional ingredients. In the field of aviation decarbonization, this synthetic fat can be used as a raw material in the HEFA pathway to produce sustainable aviation fuel. Previously, palm oil, the main raw material used in the HEFA process, faced sustainability concerns, while another key raw material – used cooking oil – was often constrained by unstable supply and price fluctuations. Taking used cooking oil (UCO) as an example, although it offers significant emission reduction benefits, it is difficult to collect and its supply is limited. Europe and the United States used to import large quantities of used cooking oil from China (commonly known as \"gutter oil\"), which also reflects the shortage of such used oil as a raw material for SAF. By converting ethanol produced from carbon dioxide into a raw material for HEFA, this new innovation removes a key obstacle to the continued development of the HEFA pathway and opens up additional possibilities for SAF production.
In fact, the technical approach that LanzaTech focused on in the past was the production of aviation fuel from alcohols (ATJ), and the company has achieved commercial-scale production of SAF from ethanol. This technological breakthrough further expands its technical platform, enabling ethanol to also be used in SAF production through the HEFA pathway, thus creating a \"dual-path\" solution and establishing a connection between the HEFA pathway and the ATJ pathway. This not only reduces carbon emissions in industries where it is difficult to cut emissions, but also enhances the resilience and geographic diversity of the SAF supply chain—any location with CO₂ emissions can become a production site for SAF. At present, this technology has passed the laboratory testing phase and is currently undergoing pilot-scale scaling at Fraunhofer’s Center for Chemical-Biological Process Technology in Leuna, Germany. The next goal is to achieve production on a kilogram scale and gradually move toward commercialization. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech, said that this innovation demonstrates the potential of a \"circular carbon economy\": greenhouse gases are no longer waste, but rather resources. From a broader perspective, the significance of this technology lies not only in replacing palm oil, but also in using biological mechanisms to reintroduce emitted carbon into the economic cycle, thereby reducing environmental pressure while generating economic value.
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