In this episode of Sustainability in the Air, Synhelion’s Founder and CEO Philipp Furler joins SimpliFlying’s CEO Shashank Nigam to unpack how the Swiss technology company is working to scale synthetic fuels by tackling some of the fundamental cost and infrastructure barriers facing SAF today.
Synhelion emerged from ETH Zurich in 2016, initially developing concentrated solar technology that uses mirror systems to generate the heat required for fuel production. Since then, the company has adapted its approach to align with near-term market realities, combining renewable electricity, thermal processes and established fuel synthesis pathways.
That evolution is now being demonstrated at DAWN, Synhelion’s industrial plant in Germany which opened in 2024, and has been operating at nameplate capacity for over a year. The facility produces both renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBOs) and advanced biofuels, while serving as a real-world testbed for certification, logistics and commercial supply chains.
Here are the key highlights of the conversation:
How solar fuels work and why multiple pathways exist (2:31)
RFNBOs and advanced biofuels: what’s coming out of the facility (8:31)
The Lufthansa and Swiss partnership: establishing the value chain (14:40)
Targeting $1 per litre production costs within 10-15 years (19:42)
Early adopter advantages (21:57)
Exponential scale-up and the shift to licensing (29:12)
Rapid Fire! (36:04)
Keep reading for a detailed overview of the episode.
How DAWN has operated at nameplate capacity for over a year
Synhelion’s industrial demonstration plant, DAWN was inaugurated in 2024 and brought online within nearly two months. The facility has been operating for over a year at its nameplate capacity.
“We are running the plant at full syngas capacity 24 hours a day in four shifts,” Furler shares. If all of this syngas were liquefied into Fischer-Tropsch products, the plant could yield slightly more than 100,000 litres of liquid fuels per year.
At present, however, only about 10% of the syngas is converted into liquid products. As Furler explains: “DAWN is an industrial demonstration plant. So we use it to demonstrate the technology at the relevant industrial scale. We use it to gain operational experience, to collect operating hours and to establish the value chains.”
Across the entire process chain, the plant tracks detailed energy and mass flow data. This provides transparency for customers while allowing Synhelion to analyse performance and identify opportunities for improvement. The resulting demonstration batches are being used to build commercial supply chains and to certify both the fuels and the production process.
DAWN produces two distinct fuel categories. “The process yields two products, basically an RFNBO and an advanced biofuel,” Furler notes. This reflects the facility’s dual energy inputs: renewable electricity and biogas. Roughly half of the output qualifies as RFNBO, as it is driven by renewable power, while the remainder is classified as advanced biofuel due to the bioenergy contribution from biogas.
4 takeaways from the conversation
1. Drop-in compatibility enables gradual scale-up
Synhelion’s focus on drop-in fuels is rooted in the practical advantage of working within today’s fuel infrastructure rather than replacing it.
As Furler explains: “Drop-in fuels have a huge advantage because they can be used with existing infrastructure for refining, distribution, and consumption.”
This compatibility allows production to scale progressively, in contrast to technologies that depend on entirely new systems being built. “You can start small, with the first barrel, then add another thousand, and eventually millions or billions, fully replacing fossil fuels. This gradual ramp-up of capacity is the real winner and a huge advantage over technologies that require step changes.”
For Synhelion, this means new volumes of fuel can flow directly into existing refineries, distribution networks and end uses as production increases, avoiding the delays and capital intensity associated with developing new infrastructure from scratch.
2. Multiple product streams diversify revenue and accelerate scale
Synhelion’s production process generates a range of synthetic fuels, with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) forming a significant share of output alongside road and marine fuels. As Furler explains: “We can’t produce only jet fuel, so we focus on SAF and jet fuel and optimise our process to maximise SAF output. About 70% of what we produce is SAF, with the rest consisting of diesel, naphtha, gasoline, and other products.”
This multi-product slate has enabled the company to establish diverse offtake arrangements across transport sectors. For example, in 2024, Synhelion signed a long-term offtake agreement for renewable diesel with Zurich Airport, under which Zurich Airport Ltd. will purchase 30,000 litres of solar diesel starting in 2027. Building on this partnership, last year, a passenger bus at the airport was powered with a 190-litre barrel of Synhelion’s solar diesel blend, which could support nearly 12 days of operation.
Moreover, the Lake Lucerne Navigation Company (SGV) AG has also signed a five-year agreement with Synhelion, and in 2025 its steamboat Gallia, powered by a traditional two-cylinder steam engine, successfully ran on solar diesel produced by the company.
Beyond diversifying revenue, these multiple customer relationships serve a strategic purpose. “The more markets we serve and the more customers we have, the more support we can build for our scale-up roadmap,” Furler notes. He adds that expanding into chemical and pharmaceutical applications could “further stabilise the business case” and make it “more attractive.”
3. Early adopters gain preferential access to future volumes
Synhelion has structured its commercial approach to reward customers who support the company during the capital-intensive scale-up phase.
Their planned 1,000-ton commercial pilot plant represents roughly a tenfold increase in production volumes from DAWN’s capacity, and Furler reports that early demand has already been secured: “It’s a commercial pilot. We are actually sold out until 2032. So we have signed binding offtake agreements at a significant premium,” he shares. While these initial customers are paying higher prices during the early scale-up phase, the contracts are designed to deliver long-term advantages.
“Companies that sign offtake contracts [early] will receive preferential access to large-scale volumes coming online in 2030, just as regulations kick in and sub-mandates for RFNBOs are activated,” Furler explains.
This alignment between early commercial support and future regulatory-driven demand underpins what Furler views as a strategic opportunity: “If you help us now, you will get an advantage. And we believe the market will be short in the future.”
4. From producer to technology licensor
Synhelion’s long-term strategy envisages a gradual shift in its role within the fuel value chain. For now, the company operates as a fully integrated producer, developing projects, building plants, running facilities and selling fuel. This vertical integration, however, is intended as a means to prove both the technology and the business case.
Right now, we do everything ourselves, not because we want to, but because we have to,” Furler explains. “We need to demonstrate that the technology and plants operate as expected and that they can generate the profits we anticipate,” Furler explains. The demonstration phase serves to de-risk the technology for future partners and validate the economic model.
The next phase focuses on scaling production to around 30,000 tonnes per year by 2030, with Synhelion directly owning and operating plants at industrial scale. Once that performance and profitability are firmly established, the company plans to evolve towards a licensing and project development model.
“We will have the technology in the market, demonstrating attractive returns at the plant level and at the company level. Then we will move back into, let’s say, a project developer role,” Furler says.
In this evolved model, Synhelion would provide core components and technology licences to large energy and oil and gas companies. Furler is pragmatic about where Synhelion’s competitive advantage lies: “I don’t believe we can contribute much in this area, [that is,] owning and operating large assets. The oil and gas industry has been doing that for a hundred years. But we are really strong at developing technology.”
Alongside commercial deployment, Synhelion continues to invest in next-generation innovations, including concentrated solar systems and advanced catalysts, with the aim of further improving efficiency and driving down fuel production costs over time. “We need to keep driving this forward, improve it further, and then bring the technology to market to reduce costs and increase efficiency.”
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