The sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) sector is navigating a period of profound uncertainty. Caught between shifting regulatory frameworks and intense scrutiny over technology readiness, developers are racing to prove their solutions are commercially viable. Houston-based Syzygy Plasmonics recently turned heads by locking in capacity reservation agreements with market giants Trafigura and World Fuel Services.
We sat down with Syzygy’s CEO, Trevor Best, to discuss the company’s unique photocatalytic technology, the roadmap to their first commercial volumes in Uruguay, and the reality of meeting global climate mandates by 2030.
Let’s start with the recent announcements. Securing capacity reservations with heavyweights like Trafigura and World Fuel Services is a major milestone. What does this mean for Syzygy’s position in the market?
More than anything, it is a validation point for our core value proposition. It shows the market that Syzygy is well on its way to becoming a major player in this space. Traders like World Fuel Services and Trafigura do not take on these types of engagements unless they see that there is quite a bit of money to be made. They are highly discerning and do a substantial amount of background digging to ensure there is real industrial meat behind the flashy things you see in the press. This shows the world that Syzygy is real, we are here, and we will be bringing large volumes of product online in the future alongside the market’s key players.
Can you walk us through the actual roadmap? You’ve announced the NovaSAF-1 project in Uruguay, and we are starting to hear whispers about a broader pipeline.
Exactly. We have a very methodical, stepwise approach to the market. We are currently carving out what we call the “NovaSAF-X” pipeline, which includes future projects across Latin America, the US, and the MENA region.
But Uruguay – NovaSAF-1 – is our critical proof point. While we’ve already validated all of our individual technology pieces and integrated them with upstream and downstream components, Uruguay will be the first time we go end-to-end to make and sell on-spec product into the desired market. Before an institutional investor hands over billions of dollars to build out large-scale facilities, they need to see that end-to-end system working. They also need to see that we can meet all the strict regulatory requirements to actually sell into the EU and UK, and that we have the right value chain partners to physically move SAF from Latin America to Europe.
What is the exact timeline for getting these facilities online?
We are fundraising for the Uruguay plant right now, and things are looking good; that should conclude in the next couple of months. Construction will follow immediately, and Uruguay is slated to come online in 2028.
This is where the capacity reservations with Trafigura and World Fuel Services come into play—they are holding their spots for a specific percentage of our future, larger plants. As we construct Uruguay, we will simultaneously complete the engineering for those larger NovasAF X plants. When the engineering hits the right maturity level, those reservations will convert into true, binding offtake agreements. This lines us up to hit our Final Investment Decision (FID) on the big plants in 2028, right when Uruguay comes online, so the large-scale facilities can go live in 2030. If you are tracking the EU SAF mandates, you understand exactly why that 2030 timeline is so critical.
Relevant: Twelve Opens First Commercial US Plant For SAF From Captured CO2
Why Light Trumps Heat
Let’s pivot to the technology itself. Syzygy’s approach is unique because you use light instead of heat to drive chemical reactions for SAF production. Why is that fundamentally better?
Syzygy started in 2018, and we’ve raised $135 million to develop our core technology: the Rigel reactor cell. It is the world’s first light-driven chemical reactor cell.
Traditional technologies, like a standard steam methane reformer (SMR), rely entirely on combustion heat. If you search for the inside of a steam reformer, you’ll see a massive unit packed with tubes surrounded by intense burners. Because they operate under extreme heat and pressure, they have to be built out of incredibly expensive materials like nickel and chrome alloys. Because our reactor is driven by light instead of heat, we can construct it out of lower-cost materials like aluminum, glass, and low-alloy steel. That means very low CAPEX.
How does that impact the operational side and efficiency?
It completely alters the economic equation. In our 2024 field trial at Lotte Chemical, which focused on a different reaction – ammonia cracking – we achieved above 80% energy efficiency. When you combine low CAPEX with high energy efficiency, you get exceptionally low OPEX.
Another massive advantage is modular scalability. Combustion-based systems like steam reformers suffer from severe efficiency losses when you scale them down. The smaller you build them, the worse the economics get. Our technology does not lose efficiency as it scales down. The cell stack maintains the same efficiency whether it’s big or small, meaning we can scale the unit to perfectly match the size of the localized feedstock.
And your primary feedstock for this process is biogas?
Yes, we take in renewable electricity and biogas, which is a natural mixture of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The Rigel cells reform that into syngas, which then goes through a Fischer-Tropsch gas-to-liquids process to be upgraded into certified SAF (specifically FT-SPK under ASTM D7566).
Traditional SMR technologies cannot utilize the CO2 inside biogas. They have to spend extra CAPEX on separation systems just to strip out the CO2 and vent it into the atmosphere. Not only is that wasteful, but that CO2 has valuable mass. Because Syzygy’s technology inherently processes both the methane and the CO2 simultaneously, we eliminate that separation equipment, reduce CAPEX, and end up creating more fuel from the same input. It fundamentally shifts the economics of utilizing biogas for SAF.
Since you mention European compliance, how does the policy framework support this specific chemical pathway?
The European mandates are very specific. Under EU Delegated Act 2023/1185 (Annex A.3), if renewable electricity is used to enhance the heating value of a fuel or an intermediate, that electricity qualifies as RFNBO (Renewable Fuel of Non-Biological Origin) compliant.
Our reactor does exactly that: the syngas coming out has a higher heating value than the biogas going in. Because of this, our process generates a mixed product stream: a certain percentage is certified Bio-SAF, and a certain percentage is RFNBO-compliant. As anyone tracking the SAF market knows, everyone is currently sweating over how to find available, cost-efficient RFNBO volumes.
The Cost Reality and the Tipping Point
Since economics are central to this, how does your SAF compare to conventional jet fuel on cost?
I have to be honest, I can’t share specific public pricing because of commercial confidentiality agreements, and I don’t want to impede my partners’ margins. What I can say is that it is highly cost-effective, and we are looking at dramatic cost reductions compared to traditional RFNBO pricing. On the bio-portion, we aren’t forcing any kind of dramatic price increase over standard bio-SAF.
There is a potential future where this can compete head-to-head with conventional jet fuel, but that requires immense scale and the right financing structures. It’s not a guaranteed certainty today, but our cost structure makes it entirely possible.
However, economics are highly regional. I need both affordable power and available biogas. In Europe or the US, intense competition and regulatory schemes drive biogas prices up. But at a stranded site in Brazil, power can be $40 a megawatt-hour, whereas in Europe it easily clears $100. Those regional factors heavily dictate viability.
Right now, SAF makes up less than 1% of the global aviation fuel mix. Critics are highly skeptical that the industry can realistically scale to millions of tons by mid-century. What is your perspective? Can we actually make it?
I like to look at historical case studies. If you want some interesting bedtime reading, look at the history of wind and solar. That journey started in the 1970s. The US government put early incentives in place, and it took 30 to 40 years of slow, marginal growth before the industry hit a genuine tipping point. Suddenly, around 2010, growth turned meteoric. Today, it’s a massive, healthy part of the global energy mix.
The mandates we see today are providing the exact same activation energy for SAF: getting the market started while we wait for that tipping point. It won’t happen overnight. If we have this same conversation a year from now, I’ll tell you about exciting milestones, but we won’t be past the tipping point yet. But looking out over the next 10 to 15 years, there is vastly more institutional interest in SAF than there ever was for solar in the 1980s.
What do you see as the biggest economic hurdle to crossing that threshold?
Greenfield capital amortization. One of the main reasons it’s so difficult for green technologies to compete with traditional fossil refineries is that those refineries are often 80 years old. They paid off their capital debt decades ago; they are only paying for daily OPEX. When I build a brand-new greenfield facility, a massive chunk of our revenue has to go directly toward servicing debt.
As the first generation of SAF facilities systematically pays down that debt over the next decade, market costs will fall dramatically. We are a long way from completely displacing fossil jet fuel; I don’t think that complete displacement will happen in my lifetime. But if the industry deploys a mosaic of pathways – our biogas tech, cellulosic gasification, alcohol-to-jet, and advanced HEFA – achieving a 50% SAF blend globally by 2050 is entirely possible. Syzygy intends to be a meaningful part of that equation.
Read more: Syzygy Plasmonics Secures Future SAF Offtake Commitment With World Fuel Services
