Masdar, TotalEnergies, Siemens Energy and Marubeni join forces for methanol to jet pathway

Masdar, TotalEnergies, Siemens Energy and Marubeni have formed a consortium to certify a new production pathway for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from methanol.

The companies first started working together looking at different pathways in 2021 and have decided on methanol to jet (MTJ). Abu Dhabi Department of Energy, Etihad Airways, Lufthansa Group, and Khalifa University of Science and Technology have also been working with them.

The Alcohol to Jet Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene pathway (ATJ-SPK) was certified in 2016 as meeting international standards for jet fuel by ASTM International as ASTM spec: D7566-5 – Annex 5. Masdar, TotalEnergies, Siemens Energy and Marubeni are hopeful that they can get methanol added to the range of usable alcohols included in this specification. The maximum blend from the ATJ-SPK pathway is 50%.

“Although the individual components of the MTJ pathway are for the most part mature technologies, they have not yet been integrated for the purposes of making SAF and this route is not yet certified,” says the group. “The consortium will now work together with licensors of the MTJ technology, to get this novel pathway certified at the earliest.”