Metafuels’ vision is to enable an affordable and at-scale decarbonisation of aviation. The company is commercialising a novel technology to produce sustainable aviation fuel (e-SAF) using renewable energy.

The technology branded as “aerobrew” is based on using green methanol as feedstock. Green methanol in turn is made from green hydrogen generated via water electrolysis powered by renewable electricity and CO₂ can be captured from the atmosphere using direct air capture (DAC) or sourced from waste biomass.

The aerobrew technology transforms green methanol into SAF through a catalytic process that maximizes SAF yield and energy efficiency. Life cycle carbon emissions are reduced by up to 90% compared to traditional fuel. The resulting fuel is then blended up to 50% (currently allowed limit) with conventional jet fuel and is compatible with existing planes.

The aviation industry is responsible for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is under increasing pressure and mandates to decarbonize. According to the International Energy Agency, demand for SAF could amount to 350 billion litres by 2050.

Metafuels is currently building a demonstration plant with a 50l/d capacity at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland. The first commercial plants at a 12.000 l/day SAF capacity are under development with a site in Denmark already announced. This project will be built adjacent to a green methanol project being developed by European Energy, a Danish renewable energy firm. More projects including growth projects at 120.000 l/day will follow.

You had a stable career in large-scale energy infrastructure. Why did you quit it for the uncertain outcome of building a deep tech startup?

As a young engineer, I was fascinated by big power plants and the cutting-edge technologies they involve. I wasn’t attuned to sustainability yet. But as you grow older, you grow wiser. When my elder son was born, my concerns about how to leave behind a livable world grew. I met my co-founders at my previous employer when we worked together in the CCS business developing technologies, scaling them up and implementing them in large-scale field projects. Later, we formed a consultancy to support heavy industry successfully deploy CCS to decarbonize their operations. But consulting work has a drawback, even if you put in a lot of work, you are never quite sure to see the results. We were toying with the idea of founding a company in sustainable aviation fuel and develop our own technology since we all had the relevant professional background. And at one point, we realised: It’s now or never. That was the genesis of Metafuels. We prepared the business plan in earnest, did our market research including on what existing technologies can and cannot achieve. Once we had our plans, targets and technical concept ready, we developed the partnership with PSI, and started working on the proof of concept. We raised our first round of venture capital in 2023, the second in 2024, and received a CHF 4.4 million grant from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy under their Pilot & Demonstration programme.

Metafuels is building a demonstration plant at the Paul Scherrer Institute that can produce 50 liters daily. That will get one passenger from Zurich to Barcelona. What is the goal of that plant?

PSI is the largest research institute for engineering sciences in Switzerland. We have partnered with its Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences, specifically the Energy Systems Integration platform for technology development and demonstration. PSI is an excellent partner covering a wide span from primary research all the way to hosting our demonstration plant. The goal of this plant, which is the first of its kind in Switzerland, is to deploy the entire technology tank-to-tank, from methanol to jet fuel, in one place. It is not a production plant. The size and design were carefully chosen to serve as a blueprint for the scale-up of future plants. We’ll run various test campaigns and improve the technology with it.

The next plant will be located in Denmark, with a capacity of 12.000 liters daily. For this, Metafuels has partnered with the company European Energy. Could you elaborate on this partnership?

European Energy is a pioneering company based in Denmark. They started with renewable energy projects and have now also moved downstream to power-to-X projects. Currently, European Energy is building the world’s largest e-methanol plant. We will co-locate our plant with one of their subsequent green methanol plants securing an over the fence supply of our feedstock. We are currently developing the project progressing engineering and other key activities.

What are the main challenges in scaling from the demonstrator to a larger plant?

We can rely on the knowhow and good practices in the hydrocarbon processing industry with respect to the technical and financial aspects of scaling up. Considering that the next project will be a first-of-a-kind installation, we need to be conservative in our design and in our modeling. The good thing is that, in our case, most of the equipment are already commercially available at a larger scale. This should allow for significant economies of scale and cost reduction. Also, the plant in Denmark is just a stepping stone to where we want to go: Larger plants with a capacity of at least 100t per day. With larger equipment, we could even go to more than ten times that capacity.

Will the economies of scale be enough for e-SAF to become cost-competitive with regular jet fuel?

That question is difficult to answer as we are talking about the whole value chain scaling-up. Are we talking about jet fuel prices today or in the future? And do we compare e-SAF to kerosene, which can emit carbon dioxide for free? ETH just published a study regarding the cost of climate-neutral aviation. According to the study, efficiency gains have made flying much cheaper in the past, and if this trend continues, a climate-neutral flight in 2050 would cost the same as today.

Metafuels aims to be the lowest-cost producer of e-SAF. Our technology scores very high in energy efficiency and yield, which means a very high percentage of the renewable energy and the sustainable carbon that goes into the value chain are converted into the final product. Additionally, our technology can be deployed for large single-train plants significantly bringing down cost of production and thereby improving competitiveness of SAF.

Could your process also be used to make sustainable fuel for cars?

There is a straightforward answer to this question: If you can electrify something, you should. It doesn’t make sense to power standard cars with e-fuels. At every step of e-fuel production, you lose some of the input energy. Since the electric car is a reality, it makes sense to use this technology. Aviation is different. Electrifying large passenger planes for long-haul flights is not currently feasibly, so e-SAF is the way forward to decarbonize the aviation industry.

Aviation is not the only industry with a carbon addiction. Giant container shipping lines are ordering green methanol-powered ships, indicating that this is their low-carbon fuel of choice. Conventional methanol production from fossil fuels amounts to 98 million tonnes yearly, green methanol for just 0.2 tonnes. Experts warn that there will be a significant green methanol crunch in the future as demand rises. Does that worry you?

It does not. Look at the bigger picture: Rising demand is challenging for many inputs, not just green methanol. Where will the green energy come from with everything that needs to be electrified? The sustainable carbon? I firmly believe that innovation and market forces will solve these challenges and provide the necessary capacity. As for the shipping industry, there are alternatives to the use of methanol. In any case, jet fuel is a higher-value product than methanol and our focus and key differentiator is an efficient use of valuable sustainable resources.

Will it be difficult for Metafuels to find suitable locations for your plants? You must be close to the feedstock, renewable energy sources, and airports.

Our technology provides the flexibility that PtX project developers dream of. Methanol is easily transportable, so a disaggregated value chain is possible. In the near term, I expect methanol production plants to be distributed since the sources of sustainable carbon are distributed, too. However, a hub-and-spoke system with multiple methanol plants supplying a large centralised SAF production plant installed close to jet fuel infrastructure would allow for significant economies of scale.

Centralized or not, these plants will cost money. Where will it come from?

Metafuels currently is venture-funded, and we have some of the best funds backing us. We will continue to rely on venture funding to deliver our first commercial project. As for the build-up of future production capacity, we intend to build long-term partnerships with infrastructure funds for project investments. These projects will deploy Metafuels proprietary technology. In parallel, we will also license our technology to other SAF project developers.

Not only are passengers and airlines clamoring for low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels, but European politicians are pushing forward, too. How do you see the regulatory landscape for sustainable aviation fuels evolving?

On the 1. of January 2025, the EU introduced a regulation that promotes the increased use of SAF as the single most powerful tool to decrease aviation CO2 emissions. The minimum share of SAF at EU airports needs to be 2%, and this mandatory share will increase over the years up to 70% by 2050. This regulation creates an impetus to build more and more capacity and scale up the SAF value chain. This is very encouraging. The SAF already used today largely comes from processing of used cooking oil, of which there is only a finite amount available. Novel technologies like ours have a key role to play in additional capacity necessary to meet these targets.
Since we are dealing with new regulation, there probably will be pain points in the future, e.g., discussions centering around what qualifies as sustainable feedstock and what not. I’m confident the regulators will address these questions as they arise.

Metafuels employs around a dozen people today. How will the team evolve?

Metafuels is already evolving from a technology development company to a project delivery company to push increasing capacity to the market. We need to expand the team and attracting talent is a priority. We need people that have worked in the industry and have experience and know-how in building hydrocarbon processing plants, in safety, in documentation etc. Internally, we need to scale our tools and systems alongside our design & engineering and project development capacity.

Metafuels is based close to Zurich. Switzerland has lots of talents in building pharmaceutical and biotech plants, but not hydrocarbon plants. How do you want to attract these experts?

Attracting the best talent is clearly a priority for us and some of my colleagues have relocated from EU countries to Switzerland to join Metafuels. As we expand, we will be recruiting positions and functions where specific industrial background is less relevant.

We have a great team at Metafuels and I’m very confident that we will continue to attract the right people because we’re deploying cutting-edge science to make a clear and measurable impact. We’re also offering a very international opportunity as we plan to have production projects in different parts of the world.

Metafuels’ founding team continues to provide a solid foundation and we already have future leaders of the company emerging from the team.