At Mission Zero Technologies, we are convinced that the key to scaling sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) lies above — in the megatonnes of industrial CO₂ emissions that have unbalanced our climate. Abundant and available everywhere, atmospheric CO₂ offers SAF producers a truly unconstrained source of sustainable carbon to displace the fossil-based sources traditionally used to make it.
Unlike biomass alternatives, this carbon feedstock is also scalable. Offering a minimal land footprint, DAC-enabled synthetic fuels provide the flexibility to produce SAF in land-constrained areas and co-locate production near the end point of use — cutting out the transport-related emissions of existing supply chains.
Thanks to a £1.38m award from the Department for Transport’s Advanced Fuels Fund, we can now demonstrate the viability of combining atmospheric CO₂ with power-to-liquid technology to scale SAF through a first-of-a-kind UK-based project.
“Direct air capture offers a truly scalable source of sustainable carbon; the sooner we demonstrate its value at scale, the sooner the UK’s SAF industry can take flight.” — Dr Nicholas Chadwick, Mission Zero CEO
The project — “Advancing Sustainable Aviation via Power-to-Liquid and Direct Air Capture” (ASAP-DAC) — is led by a consortium headed by alternative fuels developer Carbon Neutral Fuels, and includes io consulting as engineering partner and ourselves as Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology partner. By December 2024, our partnership will provide the Front-End Engineering Design for a UK-based Power-to-Liquid e-fuels demonstration facility capable of producing 750,000 litres of SAF per year.
In the UK, DAC technology — which in our case uses renewable energy and water to recover historic carbon emissions from the air — is already being commercially adopted to decarbonise the construction and energy industries. This project will confirm the huge commercial viability that DAC also offers for rapidly scaling the UK’s e-fuels industry.
“This is a huge milestone…we’re incredibly excited to showcase how achieving Net Zero can be as simple as changing your fuel supplier.”— Sophie Zienkiewicz, CNF Co-Founder
