Sustainable Aviation Fuel

Organizations active in SAF include Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, Airbus, Boeing Company, Gevo, Honeywell, Neste Oil and Rolls-Royce. Their roles differ: the initiative coordinates industry stakeholders, while patent data identifies Rolls-Royce, Chevron Corporation and UOP LLC among prominent holders. Recent activity also includes Infinium’s power-to-liquid work and KBR’s PureSAF technology selection for NorSAF, reported in May 2026.

Infinium is identified in FACTS as a power-to-liquid startup, and Metafuels announced a $24 million funding round in February 2026. Infinium’s SAF technology uses captured carbon dioxide and low-carbon hydrogen, while its mSAF platform expands its synthetic-fuel offering to methane feedstocks. These examples point to startup activity in synthetic fuels, although the available facts do not establish a definitive ranking of the most promising companies.

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Washington State University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are identified in FACTS as active SAF research organizations. Their work includes waste-plastic and food-waste conversion, forest residues and renewable lipids, and catalyst technology for jet-fuel production. Recent research also includes a November 2026 Fischer–Tropsch catalyst publication involving the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

FACTS records $1.08 billion in grants across 116 awards since 2020, plus 31 funding rounds totaling $26.27 billion. These are database aggregates, not a measure of SAF-only investment: individual entries may cover broader company or project activity. Among recent SAF-specific announcements, Metafuels reported a $24 million round and Concrete Chemicals reported $419 million in public funding in February 2026.

Metafuels announced a $24 million round in February 2026 to scale its synthetic aviation-fuel technology. Also in February 2026, Concrete Chemicals was reported to have secured $419 million in public funding for an industrial-scale e-SAF facility in Germany. These announcements support different parts of the market: technology scale-up and proposed production infrastructure.

Rolls-Royce leads the listed patent holders with 55 patents. Chevron Corporation is next with 14, followed by UOP LLC with 12; Haldor Topsøe and Pratt & Whitney Canada each have 9. The list also includes Visolis Bv with 8 and Air Company Holdings with 5. These counts describe the patent-holder data in FACTS.

Patent activity is down 13.6% in the latest 12 months compared with the previous 12 months; FACTS also records 192 patents in its 24-month window. Publication activity moved in the other direction: 550 publications appeared last year, up 30.0%. The contrast suggests that recent technical attention is rising even as patenting has eased over the stated comparison period.

FACTS identifies five approaches: HEFA, Fischer–Tropsch, alcohol-to-jet, power-to-liquid and direct sugar-to-hydrocarbon. HEFA processes oils and fats; Fischer–Tropsch converts syngas; alcohol-to-jet upgrades alcohols; power-to-liquid combines hydrogen and carbon dioxide; and direct sugar routes convert sugars into hydrocarbons. They differ in feedstocks, process steps and their dependence on renewable inputs.

FACTS lists commercial passenger aviation, air cargo, military aviation, and business and general aviation as SAF applications. Commercial passenger aviation is the largest listed category, with 5,713 documents; air cargo has 357, military aviation 166, and business and general aviation 648. SAF’s drop-in use is relevant across these sectors, subject to fuel availability and applicable requirements.

Recent developments include a November 2026 report of a cobalt-manganese catalyst for Fischer–Tropsch syngas conversion and an October 2026 publication on producing jet-fuel aromatics from cellulose-rich waste. In October 2026, Shell, Fraunhofer IKTS and AVL announced work on solid-oxide co-electrolysis for power-to-liquids fuel. In June 2026, KLM Cityhopper operated a passenger flight using a synthetic-kerosene blend.