Zero Petroleum has developed a 100% replica of Jet A-1, kerosene that is used to power commercial and military aviation.
The synthetic sustainable aviation fuel, or e-SAF, was created using Zero’s Direct FT process, which utilises CO2 and green hydrogen, at its Plant Zero.1 site near Oxford, UK. Analysis was conducted by Intertek, with support coming from the UK SAF Clearing House and funding from the UK Department for transport.
Zero Petroleum will now move towards commercial production, with a pre-front-end engineering design study for its first commercial scale plant, supported by the UK’s Advanced Fuels Fund grant, already having been completed by Technip Energies.
Paddy Lowe, Founder & CEO of Zero Petroleum, commented: “We set out to do the hardest thing first. Jet A-1 is the most demanding fuel on Earth to make, because it has to be perfect – the people flying behind it are trusting it absolutely. Proving we can synthesise a 100% replica, matched property for property, is the moment that changes what is possible for aviation. It means the 50% ceiling is not a law of nature – it is just a limit of the fuels that came before ours. We can bring forward the day when an aircraft is filled entirely with fuel made from air and water, and the pilot, the engine and the aircraft cannot tell the difference.”
Doug McKiernan, Chief Technology Officer, Zero Petroleum, said: “I spent my career chasing performance without compromise on championship-winning cars, where a tiny imperfection costs you everything. Jet fuel is the same problem, taken to the limit – hundreds of properties that all have to be right at once, with no second chances. What we have proven is that you can rebuild that fuel exactly, from air and water, with nothing left out – including the properties most people never think about, like the one your fuel gauge depends on. That is the difference between a fuel that looks similar and a fuel that genuinely is the same.”
