LanzaTech announced that its DRAGON facility project (earlier post) has received a £25-million (~US$31-million) grant from the UK Department for Transport’s Advanced Fuels Fund Competition. LanzaTech’s Project DRAGON, which stands for Decarbonizing and Reimagining Aviation for the Goal Of Netzero, will convert waste gases into synthetic kerosene for use in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

With the funding, Project DRAGON will complete engineering and the project development in collaboration with Fluor Corporation and Technip Energies, required to reach a final investment decision (FID) for the entire waste gas to SAF project.

The proposed plant, which will be sited in Port Talbot, South Wales, is expected to produce 102 million liters (27 million galllons US) per year of ATJ Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (ATJ-SPK) to be blended with kerosene to make SAF, representing ~1% of annual UK jet fuel demand and making a contribution towards the UK Mandate for supplying 10% of total annual jet fuel demand in the UK with SAF by 2030.

The feedstock for the planned facility would be waste gases, including potentially from Tata Steel’s adjacent steelworks in Port Talbot. These would be transformed via LanzaTech’s gas fermentation platform to make ethanol as a feedstock for the ATJ facility.

LanzaTech selected Fluor Corporation, a leading global engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) firm, to provide Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) services for this part of the project.

In a second step, the ethanol would be turned into SAF using the LanzaJet Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ) process, which incorporates Technip Energies ethanol-to-ethylene Hummingbird technology. This would be the world’s first commercial-scale integration of Gas Fermentation (GF) and ATJ to produce SAF with GHG reductions expected to be greater than 70% relative to conventional jet fuel.

Technip Energies signed its first catalyst supply agreement for the proprietary Hummingbird ethanol-to-ethylene catalyst with LanzaJet in May 2021. Technip acquired Hummingbird ethanol-to-ethylene technology from BP Chemicals in 2016.

The Department for Transport’s Advanced Fuels Fund (AFF) Competition was established to support the UK advanced fuels sector in development and commercial deployment of innovative fuel production technologies that are capable of significantly reducing near-term UK aviation emissions, strengthening the UK project pipeline, and broadening technology options.