Metafuels launches demo plant at PSI in Switzerland

Swiss aviation technology company Metafuels has opened its Aerobrew methanol-to-jet demonstration plant at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen, Switzerland.

The facility will convert renewable methanol, produced from green hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide,into drop-in synthetic aviation fuel (e-SAF).

“Opening this plant is the moment our technology moves from development into operation,” said Saurabh Kapoor, CEO of Metafuels. “Achieving this together with PSI shows what is possible when world-class development and entrepreneurship pull in the same direction. From here, our focus is scaling towards commercial production in Rotterdam and beyond.”

The produced e-SAF will be fully compatible with existing aircraft, engines, and airport infrastructure. Metafuels has been collaborating with PSI on the facility since 2024.

“We have successfully developed ‘Aerobrew’ together with Metafuels on a laboratory scale. With our demonstration plant, we are now testing the process under real-world conditions,” said Marco Ranocchiari, researcher at the PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences and project lead for PSI’s involvement.

The facility is designed to streamline scale-up and de-risk commercial-scale Aerobrew production units. It will serve as the technological foundation for Metafuels’ first commercial plant, Turbe, located in the Port of Rotterdam. Currently in the front-end engineering and design (FEED) phase, Turbe is targeting production from 2030 onwards.

Metafuels is positioning itself as one of Europe’s leading e-SAF innovators, with a clear pathway from demonstration to first-of-a-kind commercial facilities. The company’s projects in the Netherlands and Denmark form the backbone of a European e-SAF production network designed to scale alongside regulatory mandates and market demand through 2030 and beyond.

Metafuels has recently secured significant partnerships including with SWISS and the Lufthansa Group.