90% carbon emission reduction! The world's first pilot methanol-to-SAF plant officially commissioned in Switzerland

By SKYSEVEN Chemical Technical Team · 2026-09-09

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On September 2, 2026, the Swiss Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and the Zurich-based clean fuel startup Metafuels jointly announced that the aerobrew sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) demonstration plant has officially commenced operation at the PSI campus.

This facility is the world's first integrated demonstration plant covering the entire production chain of methanol-to-sustainable aviation fuel. It fully covers the entire manufacturing process from methanol to synthetic aviation kerosene, with a daily SAF output of 50 liters. The entire plant adopts the methanol-to-jet fuel design scheme consistent with future commercial factories, and is mainly utilized to technical verification, process optimization and accumulation of actual operation data.

environmentally friendly electricity-driven closed-loop process with up to 90% carbon discharge reduction

The aerobrew process relies on environmentally friendly electricity to build a low-carbon production chain: environmentally friendly hydrogen is produced by electrolyzing aquatic environments with renewable electricity, then combined with carbon dioxide to synthesize environmentally friendly methanol, and further converted into synthetic aviation kerosene through a dedicated innovative catalytic system.

The SAF produced by this process is a fully substitutable aviation fuel that can immediately adapt to existing aircraft engines and airport supporting infrastructure. Compared with traditional aviation kerosene, the full-life-cycle carbon releases of this fuel can be reduced by about 90%. As early as June 2026, the methanol-to-aviation fuel methodology route obtained ASTM International certification, removing standard-level obstacles to subsequent commercial flights.

Commercial plant to be located in Rotterdam, airlines reach prolonged procurement cooperation

Metafuels plans to launch its first commercial SAF production plant in 2030. The project will be located at the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and has received subsidies and support from the Dutch government. The initial daily production capacity of the plant is designed to be 12,000 liters, with room to subsequent expansion.

Demand-side docking has already started. Swiss International atmosphere Lines and the Lufthansa Group have reached cooperation with Metafuels and are negotiating prolonged procurement agreements to meet the mandatory blending policy standards to synthetic aviation fuels implemented by Switzerland and the EU starting in 2030.

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