CAS cobalt-manganese catalyst converts 83% of carbon monoxide from wood syngas in testing

A plant engineer reading this study would go straight to the pellets. That is the form the researchers used for pilot testing ^[7]. In that run the catalyst made more than 5.15 grams of product per gram of cobalt per hour, and 79% of the liquid fell in the jet-fuel range ^[7]. The more widely quoted selectivity figure, over 67%, has a different denominator: all the hydrocarbons produced ^[3].

The design goes after an old Fischer-Tropsch compromise. Run the reaction faster and more of the output turns into unwanted gases instead of jet-range hydrocarbons ^[4]. The team at CAS Shanghai Advanced Research put cobalt and manganese on etched Beta zeolites to improve speed and selectivity together ^[1][5]. "It also exhibits remarkable stability and strong tolerance to CO2-rich feeds, thus enabling it to process real-world syngas feedstocks," the researchers wrote in the study paper ^[6].

The pitch built on these results is cheaper sustainable aviation fuel. The work behind it so far is a catalyst test and a 1,000-tonne pilot on woody biomass syngas ^[8]. "Excellent performance in industrial test and techno-economic analysis further demonstrates the strong potential of this catalyst for scalable production of SAF," the researchers wrote ^[9]. The cost figures in circulation come from the South China Morning Post. It reports a planned 100,000-tonne plant in Sichuan expected to bring in $302 million a year by 2028, with $114 million in operating costs and an estimated gross margin near 55% ^[18][14].

Those numbers do not agree. Revenue less operating cost is $188 million, about 62% of revenue ^[15][16]. A 55% margin would need roughly $136 million in costs, around $22 million more than the stated operating figure ^[17]. The article does not explain the difference or give the plant's capital cost.

If 100,000 tonnes is the plant's annual saleable output, the projection works out to about $3,020 of revenue and $1,140 of operating cost per tonne ^[12][13]. Those are producer-side numbers. A wide margin is easy to read as room to cut prices. It is just as consistent with a plant that charges a high price and keeps the difference. I'd expect an airline fuel buyer to ask first for a delivered price per tonne, set against the fossil jet fuel it buys now. Sustainable fuels make up under 1% of jet fuel consumed worldwide, and the article puts that mainly down to high production costs ^[10][11].

Sort each figure in the story along two lines: measured or projected, and producer-side or buyer-side. Measured and producer-side: the 83% conversion, the 67% and 79% selectivity figures and the 5.15-gram rate ^[2][3][7]. Projected and producer-side: the $302 million, the $114 million and the 55% ^[18][14]. Both buyer-side boxes are empty, and the claim that wood-based jet fuel is getting cheaper belongs in one of them.

I'd treat the catalyst as a credible yield result and hold the cost claim until the Sichuan plant quotes a price. The tradeoff is that a buyer who waits may be late to a plant that does hit its numbers, and that plant is due to be finished before 2028 ^[19].