Syntholene, a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) firm based in the United States, announced on June 22, 2026, the completion of a new demonstration plant in Husavík, in the north of Iceland.
What makes this facility unique is that it will use geothermal energy as one of the ingredients to produce synthetic aviation fuel, what is commonly known as eSAF.
The US firm will use this plant to test the integration of a thermal-hybrid architecture with the operation of its proprietary Solid Oxide Electrolyzer Cell technology to produce SAF.
According to Syntholene’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dan Sutton, by building a whole integrated plant, the company will be able to test the entirety of the process in real operational conditions.
Syntholene’s SAF production pathway will use geothermal heat, which is abundant in Iceland, in order to produce green hydrogen at a fraction of the electricity use that is normally required. The company expects to be able to lower the cost for the obtention of this key e-SAF feedstock by 70% compared to existing electrolysis methods of green hydrogen production.
In a press release announcing the completion of the plant’s construction, Syntholene took pride in the speed with which the project had been completed ahead of the planned schedule. Full construction of the plant took just 69 days from the issuance of a permit, a rather fast deployment even with a small-scale demonstrator.
Production at the Icelandic plant will start shortly, with Syntholene expecting to be able to publish data on its performance as early as Q4 2026.
In January 2026, Iceland’s flag carrier Icelandair signed a non-binding Expression of Interest (EOI) to potentially take up to 20,000 tons of eSAF produced by Syntholene’s Husavík plant over a period of 10 years, provided that certain price and production scale requirements are met.