Just prior to the opening of the Paris Air Show, Global Bioenergies’ Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) development process was certified by ASTM International, the US certification body for Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), in which sit 418 manufacturers in the sector, including Airbus, Boeing and global engine manufacturers. The French start-up’s SAF based on processed sugar, derived from plants, can now be incorporated up to 50% into existing airliners, mixed with fossil kerosene. Good news for the young company which sees the Paris Air Show as a unique opportunity to become the partner of the airline sector.
“We are participating for the first time. Our objective is to build a network, by establishing contacts with energy companies and airlines, with a view to partnership agreements with oil companies and airlines,” explains Marc Delcourt, managing director of the French start-up. . The latter aims to contribute to the decarbonization of air transport, thanks to an unprecedented technological process. It consists of extracting the sugar contained in a renewable vegetable resource – sugar cane, beets, glucose from wheat and corn or even straw and wood chips – and transforming it into isobutene, a molecule hitherto only derived from petroleum and used by several industrial sectors (fuels, cosmetics, materials).
“It’s microbiology: we have taught bacteria to transform sugar from plants into a molecule of industrial interest”, sums up Marc Delcourt, who founded the company in 2008 with Philippe Marlière, a microbiologist, designer of the process, for which Global Bioenergies holds the exclusive rights. The start-up, which employs 50 people, has already created derivatives of this clean molecule for the cosmetics market (agreement with L’Oréal) and road fuel (partnership with the oil company Shell).
The certification obtained allows Global Bioenergies to accelerate in order to meet the needs of airlines. On April 27, the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and Parliament tightened, as part of an agreement on the European system for decarbonizing air transport, the rules for the use of SAFs, in order to reduce faster CO2 emissions. Companies will have to incorporate 2% non-fossil fuel from 2025, then 6% in 2030 then 40% in 2040 to reach 70% in 2050, when air transport is committed to achieving carbon neutrality.
“We plan to use our technology for the air industry from 2028 by opening a large factory on one of the sites of our partner, the sugar producer Cristal Union, in the north-east of France. This plant will have a production capacity of 30,000 tonnes of SAF per year,” explains Marc Delcourt. The company’s ambition is to contribute to strengthening the industrial sector of SAF in France. “Our country is the world’s leading market for SAF. It is well positioned industrially thanks to TotalEnergies, which produces a significant part of the 80,000 tonnes per year of SAF on the La Mède site which today make up the French market. But also in terms of innovation with the French Petroleum Institute (IFP), Global Bioenergies and projects related to the use of hydrogen”, develops the managing director.
The young company has already successfully tested its sugar-based SAF. In June 2021, in partnership with Swift Fuel, a German specialist in green fuels, it organized the first intra-European flight powered by a fuel blend incorporating 97% SAF. A small Van RV-8 plane flew between Saarbrücken, Germany, and Reims in eastern France. And it also delivered a batch of 200 liters of SAF to the French armies as part of the Genoptaire project, financed by the General Directorate of Armaments (DGA).
Armies use aviation fuels to fly their aircraft but also for their land vehicles. Objective of the Genoptaire project: to assess the impact of “biobased” components, mixed with conventional aviation fuels, on the operation of the engines of French army land vehicles. Global Bioenergies is also targeting the space launch market. “Our process would also be suitable for propelling rockets since the propulsion of part of the launchers relies on kerosene”, specifies Marc Delcourt.
