Honeywell UOP, Johnson Matthey join forces to cut costs, boost deployment of sustainable fuels

Johnson Matthey announced Nov. 11 that it and Honeywell UOP have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to offer an end-to-end solution for businesses developing alternative fuels from a wide range of feedstocks including municipal solid waste, residual biomass, biogas and CO2 (captured and renewable).

The partnership brings together JM’s leading syngas solutions and Honeywell UOP’s market-leading expertise in fuel-upgrading technologies.

By bringing together the two technologies, Honeywell and JM expect to drive down operating costs and accelerate the deployment of viable projects producing fuels via Fischer-Tropsch (FT) or methanol routes.

The FT route will combine JM and BP’s codeveloped FT CANS™ technology, with Honeywell’s FT Unicracking™ technology refining the product to a drop-in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) that, once blended, complies with strict aviation industry standards.

The methanol route will bring together Honeywell UOP eFining™ technology and JM’s methanol technologies, including eMERALD™ eMethanol technology to provide an end-to-end solution for methanol to jet.

“JM and Honeywell both have a strong track record of solving the world’s emission and energy challenges, and we’ve shown customers the value of bringing together our technologies for their sustainable fuel projects,” said Alberto Giovanzana, JM’s managing director of catalyst technologies. “Consolidating our offerings into a one-stop solution helps reduce project costs and accelerate implementation.”

JM said it and Honeywell have a strong and growing pipeline of projects.

The joint offering has already been selected for DG Fuels’ proposed FT CANS SAF plant in Louisiana, which has a planned capacity of 600,000 metric tons per year.

JM and Honeywell have also shown that by integrating JM’s eMERALD™ and Honeywell UOP eFining™ technologies, additional SAF production worth over $200 million can be delivered over the life of a typical CO2-to-methanol SAF plant.

“As demand for SAF continues to grow, the aviation industry is challenged by limited supplies of traditional SAF feedstocks such as vegetable oils, animal fats and waste oils,” said Kelly Seibert, the vice president and general manager at Honeywell UOP. “Our work with JM will expand the feedstock options available in the industry to sources that are more plentiful, like waste biomass and municipal solid waste, ultimately helping improve our customers’ ability to produce SAF.”

This MOU builds on JM and Honeywell UOP’s existing partnership in CCS-enabled hydrogen, which brings together JM’s LCH™ technology and Honeywell’s leading carbon-capture technology to produce low carbon-intensity hydrogen at scale and integrate Honeywell UOP’s technologies into JM’s CLEANPACE™ offering to decarbonize existing syngas plants.

“At Honeywell, we believe that collaboration is key to driving innovation in the energy transition,” said Barry Glickman, the general manager of Honeywell’s sustainable technology solutions. “By working closely with JM, we are unlocking new opportunities for our customers to decarbonize operations and create a more sustainable future.”