Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Infinium, an electrofuels company (earlier post). The agreement, which builds on MHI’s 2021 investment in Infinium (earlier post), will focus on exploring the deployment of Infinium’s proprietary electrofuels technology in the Japanese market.

Infinium electrofuels are classified as ultra-low carbon fuels because they reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 97% when compared to traditional jet and diesel fuels. They are a drop-in replacement for fossil-based fuels and can be used in airplanes, trucks, and ships without the need for costly engine modifications.

Infinium utilizes waste CO₂ and hydrogen, which are converted to synthetic gas using Infinium’s proprietary, patented CO2Cat catalyst. The synthetic gas is then fed through a second reactor and proprietary production step to convert synthesis gas directly into liquid fuels.

By combining Infinium Electrofuels production technology with MHI Group’s CO₂ capture technology and value chain solutions, MHI aims to accelerate the realization of a carbon-neutral society in Japan, alongside its existing strategies such as EV-oriented transportation, CO₂ recovery and carbon offsets.

This collaboration also supports the Japanese government’s Green Growth Strategy, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 46% by 2030 (from 2013 levels) and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The use of carbon-neutral fuels is expected to play a key role in decarbonizing industries where this is typically challenging such as long-distance transportation, air transportation, and marine transportation, where electric vehicles are considered difficult to utilize at scale.

MHI Group is working to realize a carbon-neutral society and building a CO₂ ecosystem is one of the pillars of this effort. Through this collaboration, MHI will further promote the CCUS value chain, as well as the digital grid it designed with IBM Japan to visualize CO₂ distribution, CO₂NNEX.