A demonstration plant for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has been launched by OXCCU at London Oxford Airport, which is based in the UK.

This OX1 plant will work through converting CO2 and hydrogen directly to long-chain hydrocarbons, which will have high conversion and selectivity, making it ideal for use as SAFs. This innovative new product has been named OX FUEL by the company and this entire process will be accomplished through OXCCU’s patented single-step process.

Created, designed and operated by the UK start-up, the demonstration plant will be expected to be able to produce 1kg of liquid fuel every day, once it begins full operation in September 2024. This is a huge step forwards for the hydrogen industry and it is incredibly significant as this plant will be the first in the world to perform this process.

Another expectation of this plant, is for it to provide data which is key to the design, build and operations of a planned 160kg per day OX facility. This whole process will take place at Saltend Chemical Park in Hull throughout 2026.

It was in 2023 that the Oxford University spin-off managed to raise $22.7m of Series A financing, with the aim of commercialising its SAF production technology. To help and support this project, OXCCU received investments from Aramco, Eni, United Airlines, along with others.

OXCCU’s plant has reduced a “traditionally multi-step process to a single step, avoiding the need to first convert CO2 to CO.” This is beneficial, as this approach has been shown to reduce the cost of PtL SAF, which significantly reduces one of the barriers to the widespread adoption of SAFs.

CEO of OXCCU, Andrew Symes claimed that, ‘the launch of the plant will bring the UK closer to achieving decarbonisation in the aviation industry.’

Symes continued, “The fuel we’ve already made in a single step from CO2 in the lab has created great excitement with its potential to massively reduce the cost of SAF, but the scale-up is key, and this plant will generate the data and litres of fuel we need. Our mission is to enable future generations to fly without a climate impact, and to do that we need cost-effective Power-to-Liquid (PtL) SAF. This launch marks a key step in achieving that goal.”