NEW YORK — A startup that converts carbon dioxide into jet fuel began operating its first production system Tuesday, advancing AirCo’s effort to commercialize the nascent climate technology.
The integrated system, dubbed the AirMade Fuel Plant, brings together all five steps in the startup’s production process, which uses electricity, heat and a proprietary catalyst to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen into sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF.
The new unit is roughly 14 feet wide and 26 feet long and fits inside AirCo’s sleek, hangerlike research and development lab. The company declined to say how many barrels of SAF it was capable of producing annually, arguing that its scalable, integrated design was more important than the system’s potential output.
“That plant that you saw will lead to the commercialization of that technology by next year,” AirCo CEO Gregory Constantine said after a reporter with POLITICO’s E&E News toured the company’s lab, which is wedged between a nightclub and a vegan food court in a graffiti-filled neighborhood of Brooklyn. “We can begin to license, partner or generate revenue from that SAF technology in a pretty short distance.”
