Sustainable Aviation Fuel Cafes

Overview

The Sustainable Aviation Fuel Cafe Series presents you with a selection of speakers at the forefront of developing technologies and solutions to produce SAF. Find out about the latest developments and get connected with new collaborators. The UK Government is committed to delivering at least 10% of SAF in the UK aviation fuel mix by 2030 and Innovate UK Business Connect is helping that ambition become a reality.

Peruse the selection of speakers and join us online. Scroll down to see the recordings from the past events in the series.

A tip – when we talk about SAF, we are talking about sustainable forms of kerosene (Jet-A1 or JP8 for e.g.).

Current Agenda – Cafes

Upcoming events

Session 23 – 17 July 2025 
10:30-11:15 – Haffner Energy’s biomass-agnostic technology for SAF production: the keystone of SAF Zero investment opportunity
Marcella Franchi, Haffner Energy

Session 24 – 14 August 2025
10:30-11:15 – Producing SAF from Mixed Residual Waste
Dr Wise, Advetec

Session 25 – 18 September 2025
10:30-11:15 – Scaling up SAF production with nuclear energy
Phil Rodgers, Equilibrion

Session 26 – 23 October 2025
10:30-11:15 – SAF from waste at the same price as fossil jet fuel
Stephen Voller, H2 Refinery

Session 27 – 13 November 2025
10:30-11:15 – Industrial hub for Sustainable Engineering – piloting SAF production
Vincenzo Spallina, University of Manchester

Past events

Session 22 – 19 June 2025 (see recording below: click here to download the slides)
10:30-11:15 – 2G ethanol as a pathway to SAF
Jonathan Wood, Nova Pangaea Technologies

Session 21 – 15 May 2025 (see recording below)
10:30-11:15 – Multi-scale engineering and design of drop-in low carbon aviation fuels
Nadine Moustafa

Session 20 – 17 April 2025 (see recording below)
10:30-11:15 – Catalyst Technologies and Associated Metal Demand for Sustainable Aviation Fuels
Michelle Lynch

Session 19 – 13 March 2025 (see recording below)
10:30-11:30 – How Nuclear can make the UK fly
Stephen Coates

Session 18 – 13 February 2025 (see recording below)
10:30-11:30 – Clearing the Air: How PtL is Transforming Aviation from 2030 onwards
Alasdair Lumsden

Session 17 – 16 January 2025 (see recording below)
10:30-11:30 – Project Speedbird – Fuelling a sustainable future
Richard Marsh, LanzaJet

Session 16 – 12 December 2024 (no recording, cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances)

Session 15 – 21 November 2024 (see recording below)
10:30-11:15 – Tees Valley sustainable aviation fuels strategy
Kumar Patchigolla, Professor of Decarbonisation of Industrial Clusters, Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre, Teeside University

Session 14 – 17 October 2024 (see recording below)
10:30-11:15 – Powering planes with poo
James Hygate, CEO, Firefly Green Fuel

Session 13 – 19 September 2024 (see recording below)
10:30-11:15 – Energy and Feedstock Availability for SAFs: Where are we now? What do we need?
Paola A. Saenz Cavazos, Research Associate, Imperial College London

Session 12 – 15 August 2024 (see recording below)
10:30-11:15 – SAF from Waste: Ideas for Global Collaboration
Steve Wilkinson, Co-founder & CTO, Avioxx

Session 11 – 18 July 2024 (see recording below)
10:30-11:15 – DAC to SAF
Philip Hargreaves, CEO, Carbonbit

Session 10 – 20 June 2024 (see recording below)
10:30-11:15 – Green Hydrogen: The building block for green skies
Ian Collier, Head of Business Development, Protium

Session 9 – 29 May 2024 (see recording below)
15:00-15:45 – E-Fuel production, utilisation and emissions
Professor Mohamed Pourkashanian OBE, Managing Director, Sustainable Aviation Fuels Innovation Centre, University of Sheffield

Session 8 – 18 April 2024 (see recording below: click here to download the slides)
10:30-11:15 – SASHA Coalition: addressing aviation’s ‘green hydrogen gap’
Nuala Doyle, Policy Officer, SASHA Coalition

Session 7 – 21 March 2024 (see recording below: click here to download the slides)
10:30 – 11:15 – Biomass and non-recyclable waste gasification for SAF production
Robert Hardy, GIDARA Energy

Session 6 – 7 March 2024 (see recording below: click here to download the slides)
10:30 – 11:15 – Quality and Carbon Intensity consideration of e-SAF
Duncan Preston, Commercial Lead, Mission Zero Technologies Ltd

Session 5 – 15 February 2024 (see recording below: click here to download the slides)
10:30 – 11:15 – CO2 to jet fuel in one step
Andrew Symes, CEO, OXCCU

Session 4 – 1 February 2024 (see recording below: click here to download the slides)
10:30 – 11:15 – Scalable Synthetic SAF
Alex Chikhani, CEO, CirculAIRity

Session 3 – 18 January 2024 (see recording below: click here to download the slides)
10:30 – 11:15 – SPOCC Reactor – combining biogas with air to produce syngas
Ken Omersa, Director, Omnagen Ltd

Session 2 – 7 December 2023 (see recording below)
10:30 – 11:15 – Sustainable Aviation Fuel – Pre-screening
Dr Ehsan Alborzi, Theme Leader, Sustainable Aviation Fuel-Innovation Center (SAF-IC) , The University of Sheffield

Session 1 – 16 November 2023 (no recording, as this was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances)