The technology company Liquid Sun will start building Finland’s first test production plant for renewable electric aviation fuel in 2025. The company raised almost four million euros in funding for the pilot plant.
The main investor in the financing round is a private equity company Power Ventureswhose portfolio includes many other so-called clean technology companies, such as one that produces protein using carbon dioxide, hydrogen and electricity Solar Foods and recycling agricultural by-products Enifer.
They are also involved as investors Business Finland and a Finnish-American venture capitalist Failup Ventures.
Head of Communications and Brand at Liquid Sun Panu Nordlund says that the pilot plant will be built in collaboration with VTT at VTT Bioruukki in Kivenlahti, Espoo. The pilot plant of the first phase is the size of two shipping containers, and it is intended to produce renewable electric aviation fuel for testing in an airplane engine within about a year.
“But it won’t take off yet. Many more rounds of certification are needed for that,” says Nordlund.
According to the current regulations, 70 percent of the aviation fuel used at EU airports must be sustainably produced SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) by 2050. Up to half of this amount must be eSAF, i.e. synthetically produced sustainable aviation fuel.
The technology of the Finnish company Liquid Sun is based on low-temperature electrolysis, thanks to which the carbon needed for synthetic fuel can be refined from carbon dioxide emissions cost-effectively.