Demonstration plant for sustainable aviation fuel inaugurated at PSI

From water, renewable electricity, and carbon dioxide from sustainable sources, high-quality, climate-neutral aviation fuel is to be created. This is the goal of researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI in collaboration with the Zurich-based company Metafuels. Today, 20 August 2026, their innovative project bringing science and industry together became tangible with the inauguration of the “aerobrew” demonstration plant on the PSI campus. More than 150 guests from science, politics, industry, and the energy sector attended the inauguration ceremony, including Dieter Egli, a member of the Aargau cantonal government; Francine Zimmermann, director of the Federal Office of Civil Aviation; and Jens Fehlinger, CEO of Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS).

With the new demonstration plant, the emerging “aerobrew” technology is now being operated for the first time in an industrially relevant plant design. This is a novel catalytic process for producing synthetic aeroplane fuel – known as SAF, for sustainable aviation fuel – that PSI researchers and the Metafuels team jointly developed and patented. The project combines scientific research with industrial development in a targeted way to transform new findings into practical applications.

“At PSI, we conduct research for society. The energy transition is one of the major challenges we are currently facing,” says PSI Director Christian Rüegg. “The inauguration of the ‘aerobrew’ demonstration plant is an important milestone on the path to more sustainable aviation. We are proud that our cutting-edge research is making a crucial contribution to this step towards industrial production.”

From green methanol to sustainable fuel

“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,” says Marco Ranocchiari, a researcher at the PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences, who leads PSI‘s involvement in the “aerobrew” project. “This will allow us to further optimise the technology and create the conditions for industrial production.”

The new plant at PSI is designed to produce 50 litres of SAF per day. It is the world’s first facility to combine all the production steps for synthesising aviation fuel from methanol under one roof.

“International travel and global supply chains will continue to depend on air transport,” explains Saurabh Kapoor, co-founder and CEO of Metafuels. “That’s why we have developed a product that can be integrated into existing airport infrastructure and used in conventional jet engines, while at the same time significantly reducing climate-damaging emissions.” Metafuels plans to bring the first commercial plant for production of SAF using the “aerobrew” technology into operation starting in 2030.

The “aerobrew” process requires no fossil fuels and achieves higher selectivity – a better yield-to-revenue ratio – compared to previously used production methods for SAF. The source materials are water, from which hydrogen is produced using sustainable electricity, and carbon dioxide. The latter can in the short term be sourced from biogenic sources such as wood or plant waste, and in the long term directly from the atmosphere. Hydrogen and carbon dioxide are processed into green methanol. Finally, the “aerobrew” technology comes into play: it generates sustainable kerosene from the green methanol.

Panel discussion, inauguration ceremony and site visit

The inauguration event on the afternoon of August 20 began with a formal welcome by Christian Rüegg, Dieter Egli, and Saurabh Kapoor. This was followed by a presentation on the project by Marco Ranocchiari and Matthias Schnellmann, Vice President Commercial at Metafuels. A live interview with Jens Fehlinger and a talk by Francine Zimmermann offered insights into the future of sustainable flying.

The festive inauguration ceremony that followed took place directly at the “aerobrew” facility on PSI’s East Campus: a kerosene-powered model helicopter delivered, in a small basket, the scissors that were used to symbolically cut the red ribbon.

Finally, guests had the opportunity to tour the facility and gain an insight into the pioneering “aerobrew” technology.