Travel technology company Amadeus has acquired a minority stake in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) company Caphenia. The German-based company has developed an innovative approach to produce SAF in a more affordable and scalable way.
The investment will offer Amadeus enhanced visibility into the challenges of the SAF sector, allowing the company to further explore the role it can play in this key element of the industry’s journey to net zero by 2050.
Caphenia is developing a way of producing synthesis gas from a mixture of biogas, CO2, water, and electricity. This can be used to produce a variety of renewable fuels, with up to a 92% reduction of CO2 emissions compared to the fossil reference value.
The company also claims the process is affordable – using one-sixth of the electricity needed for alternative SAF production methods – and scalable. “We have the ambition to offer large-scale production by 2028, aiming to fill the gap between anticipated SAF demand and current supply,” said Dr. Mark Misselhorn, Chief Executive of Caphenia.
While Caphenia has secured patent protection for its Power-and-Biogas-to-Liquid (PBtL) process in all relevant core markets worldwide, the company has yet to start production but has plans to begin next year. It has plans to commence production next year and is forecasting to produce 10 million liters of SAF by 2027, planning to increase to over 100 million liters by 2030 and over one billion liters before 2035.
According to the IATA Net Zero Emission initiative, SAF has the potential to account for 65% of the reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions required for the aviation industry to reach net zero by 2050. To reach a 65% reduction in GHG emissions, a production capacity of nearly 450 billion liters annually is estimated as needed globally. The demand is huge, and innovative production technologies like Caphenia’s PBtL can satisfy it in a sustainable and cost-effective way.
