Saffire Begins Constructing New Plant To Expand U.S. SAF Production

Construction of a Southwest Airlines-backed first-of-its-kind plant that will turn corn stover into cellulosic ethanol for upgrade to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has begun in Kansas, with production planned to begin by the end of 2025.

Saffire Renewables has broken ground on the plant at Conestoga Energy’s Arkalon Energy facility in Liberal, Kansas. Funding for the plant was provided by the U.S. Energy Department’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and matched by Southwest. The plant will be capable of processing 10 tons per day of corn stover—the leaves, stalks, cobs and husks left in the field after corn is harvested.

Saffire’s technology, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and called deacetylation and mechanical refining, uses an alkaline bath and mechanical shredder to prepare corn stover for ethanol fermentation. The cellulosic ethanol produced will be upgraded to SAF at Lanzajet’s alcohol-to-jet plant in Soperton, Georgia, also supported by BETO and Southwest.

Globally, new SAF initiatives have been announced in Brazil, Iceland and Malaysia. Brazilian development bank BNDES and financing agency Finep have jointly announced the availability of BRL6 billion ($1.1 billion) in funding for biorefinery projects to produce SAF and other renewable fuels. After the U.S., Brazil is the world’s second-largest producer of ethanol, producing it from sugarcane.

In Iceland, biomass-to-fuels producer Haffner Energy has signed an agreement to integrate its technology into a SAF facility under development by green hydrogen producer IdunnH2 near Keflavik International Airport.

Planned to begin production in 2028, the plant will be capable of producing up to 65,000 metric tons of SAF per year using green hydrogen produced using wind, geothermal and hydroelectric power from Iceland’s renewable energy grid. Haffner will supply solid biocarbon, or biochar, and gasify it onsite to combine with the hydrogen to produce syngas for the power-to-liquid production of SAF.

In Malaysia, national petroleum company Petronas, Italy’s Enilive and Japan’s Euglena have made the final investment decision to build and operate a SAF and renewable diesel plant. Located at Petronas’ production complex in Johor and scheduled to be operational by the second half of 2028, the plant will be capable of processing 650,000 tons of feedstock per year including waste oils and, eventually, algal oil from microalgae. Euglena has signed a separate agreement with Petronas to jointly develop large-scale production technology for microalgae oil.