Universal Fuel Technologies Raises $3 Million for Solution to Cut Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production Cost in Half
California-based Universal Fuel Technologies (Unifuel), which is developing technology to cut sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production costs, announced that it has raised $3 million for the advancement of its projects, as well as for lab space in Texas.
Fuel accounts for the vast majority of the aviation sector’s emissions. Generally produced from sustainable resources, like waste oils and agricultural residues, SAF is seen as one of the key tools to help decarbonize the aviation industry in the near- to medium-term. SAF producers estimate the fuels can result in lifecycle GHG emissions reductions of as much as 85% relative to conventional fuels. Efforts to meaningfully increase the use of SAF by airlines face significant challenges, however, including the low supply currently available on the market, and prices well above those of conventional fossil-based fuels. Globally, SAF currently represents less than 0.1% of jet fuel volumes.
Unifuel seeks to provide better monetization opportunities for SAF producers, and enable them to maximize the use of limited raw material resources to produce more fuel at scale. Currently, most SAF is made via HEFA (hydrotreated esters and fatty acids) technology from sources like used cooking oil or animal fat, which produces up to 20% byproduct, made up of naphtha and LPG. These byproducts have considerably lower market value than SAF, restricting monetization opportunities for SAF producers. Unifuel’s Flexiforming technology, the company said, cost-effectively upgrades the low-value renewable naphtha and LPG into high-value SAF, increasing the return a producer can expect and putting more SAF on the market.
According to the company, its proprietary Flexiforming process can reduce SAF production costs by up to 50%, and the carbon emissions related to production by up to 75%.
Unifuel’s technology utilizes a chemical process that can convert many sustainable materials, such as ethanol, methanol, renewable naphtha, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and others, into high-quality sustainable fuels or chemicals, including SAF, enabling an ethanol-to-jet (ETJ) pathway at approximately half the cost of current processes. The technology is also complementary to the most common SAF production processes because it upgrades low-value byproducts, which can create better monetization opportunities for producers and maximize the use of limited raw material resources, Unifuel added.
Alexei Beltyukov, CEO of Universal Fuel Technologies, said:
“Sustainable aviation depends upon developing SAF that is not only cost-effective but able to work within the aviation industry as it stands today. With Flexiforming, we can give SAF producers the ability to make affordable, high-quality SAF that has the characteristics needed for aircraft performance and the flexibility to scale at their own rate.”
The seed round was led by TO VC, with participation from Alchemist Accelerator, Claire Technologies, and World Star Aviation.
Joshua Phitoussi, Managing Partner at TO VC, said:
“Today’s SAF production is challenged by feedstock limitations and expense, which are problems Unifuel’s Flexiforming solves. Unifuel has engineered a more efficient SAF production method that dramatically cuts costs while getting the most out of limited resources. The feedstock flexibility of Unifuel’s technology gives the company the ability to work in multiple SAF pathways, partnering with the best players of whatever pathway makes the most sense in a given geography. This ingenuity exemplifies the type of high-impact, scalable solution we believe is essential for reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, making them a strategic addition to TO VC’s portfolio of companies driving the transition to sustainable energy systems.”