Key take-aways
Rotterdam The Hague Airport (part of Royal Schiphol Group), Rotterdam The Hague Innovation Airport, SkyNRG, and Climeworks are taking the next step in realizing Zenid—a demonstration plant producing fully circular sustainable aviation fuel directly from the air.
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) made from the air via direct air capture offers a carbon-neutral solution for aviation and contributes to the industry's net-zero targets.
Fully circular aviation fuel directly from the air
The aviation industry is responsible for 3% of global manmade CO₂ emissions and has the challenging objective to reduce these emissions in the next decade significantly. Unlike road transport, aviation cannot switch to electric or hydrogen propulsion yet and therefore depends on sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). SAF purely made from air via direct air capture technology and renewable electricity offers a carbon-neutral solution suitable to meet the industry’s high demands for renewable fuels in the future.
New milestone in the development of Zenid
A conference hosted on 8 February 2021 by the Dutch Minister for Infrastructure and Water Management Cora van Nieuwenhuizen sets a new milestone in the development of Zenid. A consortium consisting of the Rotterdam The Hague Airport (part of Royal Schiphol Group), Rotterdam The Hague Innovation Airport, global leader for SAF SkyNRG, and Swiss direct air capture pioneer Climeworks agreed to investigate further the construction of a demonstration plant producing fully circular SAF with 100% CO₂ derived from the air. This is based on the positive outcome of a feasibility study for such a plant that was conducted earlier.
Christoph Gebald, co-founder and co-CEO of Climeworks
The launch of Zenid shows the commitment of the industry towards fully circular fuels from the air and their role in reducing aviation’s CO₂ emissions substantially.
The demonstration plant will be powered by regionally sourced renewable energy and combines several innovative technologies: a direct air capture plant provides CO₂ to a highly efficient co-electrolysis unit that turns the CO₂ and added water into syngas. The syngas are transformed into liquid hydrocarbons by a modular Fischer-Tropsch reactor and refined into sustainable aviation fuel.
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