Zero Hour: How the Ineratec founders are shaking up the market for synthetic fuels

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“The Zero Hour”
How the Ineratec founders are shaking up the synthetic fuel market

Ineratec produces sustainable synthetic fuels

© Marijan Murat/ / Picture Alliance

Ineratec produces sustainable fuels from the climate killer CO2 and green hydrogen. The start-up has just collected 20 million euros for a new large-scale plant. Co-founder Philipp Engelkamp sees a great future for e-fuels.

By Lucile Gagniere

Producing sustainable fuels such as kerosene, diesel or petrol from hydrogen and CO2: That sounds a bit like science fiction. A German startup has been a leader in this technology since 2014: Ineratec. The founders have just collected 20 million euros from investors, with which they want to take the step towards industrial production of so-called e-fuels.

So far, the systems are still small and produce manageable quantities. “We’re doing it globally on the largest scale available at the moment,” said co-founder Peter Engelkamp in the podcast “Zero Hour”. “But the vision is there and we don’t want to be small either.” The Karlsruhe-based company wants to lead the “power-to-liquid market and also build the largest systems.”

The systems built by Ineratec fit into a container and are therefore easy to transport. “This is possible because we have the most compact technology in the world,” said Engelkamp. The plants produce 350 tons of fuel per year. “We know that the plants have to get even bigger, because with 350 tons I can’t make the world sustainable.” The fresh money from the investors will flow into a pioneering plant in Höchst near Frankfurt am Main, which is scheduled to go into operation in 2023. Ten times that amount – 3,500 tons or 4.6 million liters – of synthetic fuels is to be produced there every year. 30 million euros will be invested in it.

Gigantic amounts needed

For the conversion to climate neutrality, however, you need completely different quantities. “These are numbers that you can’t actually imagine,” said Engelkamp. Although road traffic will be predominantly electrified, many sectors are dependent on synthetic fuels. “Everything that is powered by fossil fuels today must either be electrified in the future or it must be operated using renewable fuels. And there are areas such as air traffic, shipping, heavy goods traffic and the chemical industry that cannot be electrified so easily. And exactly in We will have to completely replace fossil fuels in these areas. Those are gigantic amounts,” says Engelkamp.

Ineratec, which was awarded the German Founders’ Prize in 2018, started together with Tim Böltken, Paolo Piermartini and their professor Peter Pfeifer as a spin-off from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The chemical process has basically been known for a long time. Ineratec has managed to build the whole thing in facilities in conventional freight containers at low cost. In addition, only hydrogen from renewable energies is used for production.

Listen in the new episode of “The Zero Hour“

  • Which grades Engelkamp had in chemistry in high school
  • Whether cars can also run on the diesel produced by Ineratec
  • Whether Robert Habeck has already stopped by Ineratec

All episodes can be found directly at AudioNow, Apple or Spotify or via Google.

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