stream, with a roadmap that converts this waste into both energy and SAF-grade fuel over the next five years. The current development stage sits at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6-7: technology has been demonstrated in a relevant pilot environment and is moving towards full- scale, integrated operation (see Table 1 ). A required shift: Zero-carbon, heat- integrated process design The most consequential argument in ZCT’s roadmap is methodological rather than chemical. Classical GTL and FT plants were engineered in an era when energy input and emissions were not binding constraints; equipment was selected for throughput and reliability, with heat losses and carbon intensity treated as secondary considerations. Under CCC technologies, that design logic is inverted. Equipment selection, reactor staging, and heat recovery loops are built around minimising carbon intensity and energy loss from the outset rather than retrofitting efficiency onto a conventional plant afterwards. This is the structural change ZCT considers necessary
for SAF to reach cost parity with kerosene: not a single breakthrough reactor, but a plant-wide methodology where carbon capture, hydrogen generation, and synthesis are designed as one heat-integrated system rather than three separate units bolted together. Conclusion The pathway from CO₂ to SAF is no longer a laboratory concept; it is an engineering and economics challenge being worked through at pilot and scale-up stages today. ZCT’s integration of carbon capture and conversion, clean hydrogen from flue gas, and cold catalyst FT synthesis offers a route to SAF that is grounded in industrial waste streams rather than competing for fresh fossil or biological feedstock. The next five years will determine whether this waste-to-SAF roadmap can deliver fuel that matches kerosene not only in chemistry, but in cost and quality: the only metrics that ultimately determine market adoption.
Nabeel Ataimisch N.Ataimisch@zero-carbon.at
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
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