GranBio will receive an $80 million grant from the U.S. government to accelerate sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production.

The amount, according to a report by EPBR, will be allocated to the installation of a plant with a production capacity of 1.5 million gallons of APS per year.

The demonstration scale unit will be fed with wood chips and sugarcane waste and will have a total investment of about US$ 220 million, in addition to equity resources and other stakeholders in the project.

The company was selected to develop AVAP biorefinery technology in biofuel manufacturing.

According to GranBio for EPBR, the technique adopted produces pure, high-yield and low-cost lignocellulosic sugars from biomass for conversion into biochemical products and biofuels. The company has more than 300 registered global patents.

The budget is part of the U.S. Department of Energy 's SAF Grand Challenge Roadmap program, in partnership with the Department of Transportation (DoT) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA), designed to drive projects to expand new SAF production technologies on a commercial scale.

In September last year, the DoE launched a roadmap for the SAF to meet 100% of domestic aviation fuel demand with biofuel by 2050. The initiative was included in the Biden administration's net zero emissions package, which allocates $369 billion to support the country's energy transition.

In the U-U.S. alone, commercial aviation consumes approximately 10% of all transportation energy and contributes 2% of national carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

For GranBio CEO Bernardo Gradin, the recognition of the Energy portfolio will endorse the technology. "The resource is very significant, but the signal is even more relevant that this solution is one of those chosen by the U.S. government to accelerate the viability of SAF on a commercial scale," he told EPBR.

In addition to an applied research center in the United States, GranBio has three pilot plants and now a demonstration-scale unit.

Sustainable aviation fuel is produced from waste, vegetable oils and biomass, among other non-fossil sources, and is at the top of the list of actions to decarbonize the sector. When compared to petroleum kerosene, for example, SAF reduces CO2 emissions by up to 85%.

It is estimated that without the energy transition in the sector, civil aviation could account for 22% of global emissions by 2050. As for saf production, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) projects 30 billion liters for 2023 and about 450 billion liters by 2050.

Granbio also operates the world's largest second-generation ethanol plant with its own technology. Located in Alagoas, the plant develops clean technologies from several varieties of biomass, such as sugarcane bagasse, wood waste, fruit bagasse, rice straws and corn.

Source: RPA news