Demand for technology used in the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and blue hydrogen sectors has accelerated into a phase of “hypergrowth” as global production of the clean fuels scales up globally, according to Maurits van Tol, chief executive of Catalyst Technologies at Johnson Matthey.

“Demand for blue hydrogen technology and anything related to SAF is booming,” van Tol told Hydrogen Economist in an interview. “We call it hyper-scaling—not fast growth, but hypergrowth.”

Policies mandating increased SAF use are key drivers of growth. Meeting the UK’s target of 10% SAF use by 2030 would require 8,917bl/yr, according to internal modelling by Johnson Matthey and consulting firm EY. This expansion would amount to up to £11.9b ($15.1b) gross value added to the UK economy, according to the modelling.

“There is this enormous push for SAF, and we are in the midst of it because we can help our customers to produce the various aromatic and non-aromatic components,” van Tol said.

Johnson Matthey played a key role in a breakthrough for the fuel in November, when UK airline Virgin Atlantic made the first 100% SAF flight by a commercial airline from London Heathrow to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

The flight was made possible by using bioforming technology to convert sustainable plant sugars into a bio-aromatic product. The technology was invented by US-based SAF company Virent and jointly developed for commercialisation by Virent and Johnson Matthey.

“The aromatic component is something you need for sure in aviation,” said van Tol. “We have developed a technology with Virent. We helped them develop the catalysts and scale their technology up, and together we now license that technology.”

One of the challenges in scaling up SAF production is feedstock supply, with constraints on the availability of inputs such as used cooking oil. However, increased use of biomass, solid waste and CO₂ with hydrogen can help to address this, van Tol said.

The use of CO₂ as a feedstock in combination with electrolytic hydrogen to make synthetic gas, and then SAF via the Fischer–Tropsch process, is expected to gain traction. “By 2030, I am sure there will be quite a lot more SAF being produced from CO₂ than we have today–and it will be growing even faster after that,” he said. “Our technologies are perfectly suitable to use municipal solid waste or biomass or CO₂ as a feedstock.”

Blue hydrogen

Johnson Matthey has also seen “extremely rapid” growth in demand for its blue hydrogen production technology, van Tol said.

The UK, which is promoting the development of several net-zero industrial clusters based mainly around blue hydrogen, has been a frontrunner in that sector. Johnson Matthey’s LCH blue hydrogen technology is being deployed at the Saltend blue hydrogen project in the UK’s Humber region.

Demand for the technology is also now ramping up around the world.

“Demand for blue hydrogen technology and anything related to SAF is booming” van Tol, Johnson Matthey

“When you look at our portfolio and our opportunity pipeline, it is really global. In particular, the US is absolutely flying because of the Inflation Reduction Act and other support,” he said. “But also, in the Middle East and in other areas, they are looking into this space because they want to build sustainable chemicals and fuels as an export product, whether as hydrogen, or as methanol and ammonia as energy carrier. It is really global now.”

The green hydrogen sector, to which Johnson Matthey also supplies components, is “growing like crazy from a small base”, he said. But the deployment of blue hydrogen at scale is important because it will enable the buildout of the market’s infrastructure and give the green hydrogen supply chain time to mature, van Tol said.

Ultimately, achieving net zero by 2050 will require both green and blue hydrogen, with countries developing production according to their own resources, be they renewables or natural gas, he added.

“Hydrogen, in my opinion, is going to be everywhere,” van Tol said. “When you have hydrogen, you can convert CO₂ into chemicals and fuels, and that is attractive. You start to use CO₂ rather than paying for its emission or storage and you start to use it as a feedstock and make the carbon chain really circular.”

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Author: Stuart Penson