Flight to Success: CAPHENIA SAF Pilot Plant in Frankfurt/Main, powered by JEMA

Did you hear about SAF? If you plan to keep flying to travel, you will want to know more. SAF stands for Sustainable Aviation Fuel – a replacement of conventional jet fuel such as kerosene, but with a lower carbon footprint. Aviation today is responsible for ~2-3% of global CO₂ emissions and the urgent task is to reduce these.

The Challenge

Since 2024, the ReFuelEU Aviation Regulation requires airlines to blend increasing amounts of SAF into conventional jet fuels at EU airports.  On the other hand, the production of SAF is still very limited: it is less than 1% of aviation fuel globally. There are different chemical processes to produce SAF, most of them are PtL (Power to Liquid) and an H₂ electrolysis is part of the process. They can start from organic waste like used cooking oil. And while we Belgians love our fries, we would prefer not to rely on eating more of them to fuel aviation.

The CAPHENIA Solution

Instead, CAPHENIA is pursuing a more efficient approach with their “three-in-one” Plasma-Boudouard-Reactor (PBR). They are demonstrating, that the Power-and-Biogas-to-Liquid (PBtL) process is a lot more efficient and does not produce byproducts compared to PtL. The CAPHENIA process combines renewable electricity, biomethane, and CO₂ to produce synthesis gas (syngas). The syngas is then converted and refined into renewable fuels such as kerosene, also known as SAF. If you would like to learn more details, please do not hesitate to download the CAPHENIA white paper from their webpage.

Where JEMA Fits In

One important element in the PBR reactor is a plasma torch – powered by a JEMA DC power system. Keeping the arc stable within the torch challenges our engineers to come up with a very reactive and adaptive current control. It is no surprise we like to call our power supply systems “high performant” That is exactly where JEMA’s expertise makes the difference. Whenever an industrial process requires a power supply that is not available from the catalogue, this is for JEMA!

For the CAPHENIA project JEMA has supplied a 1MW rectifier, integrated into a 40ft container with all infrastructure including air and water cooling, plus a transformer for connection to the mid-voltage grid on site. The whole system was tested as much as possible in our new production hall in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium to minimize the efforts for startup and before being commissioned on site in Frankfurt-Höchst at the InfraServ industrial park.