Nova Pangaea Technologies has completed extended endurance trials of its REFNOVA waste-biomass process at the Wilton Centre on Teesside, reporting stable continuous operation for up to 72 hours and product yields above its internal targets.
The trials used softwood residues from timber operations and processed feedstock at rates of up to three tonnes per day. REFNOVA converts woody and non-food agricultural residues into second-generation ethanol and biochar, with the ethanol intended as an intermediate for conversion into sustainable aviation fuel through an alcohol-to-jet process.
The latest campaign extends the operating evidence available from the demonstration plant. A process that performs during a short trial still has to show that feed preparation, solids handling, temperatures, residence times and product quality can remain controlled for longer periods, particularly where the incoming biomass varies in moisture, particle size and composition.
Continuous operation also exposes equipment interactions that are easier to miss in batch or short-duration testing. Material can bridge or foul, heat transfer can drift, wear becomes more visible and small control errors can accumulate. A 72-hour run remains far shorter than commercial plant availability targets, but it supplies a more useful design basis than a laboratory result or brief demonstration.
Stewart Stewart, chief executive of Nova Pangaea Technologies, said: “The latest trials have validated our technology and should further underpin the confidence of investors on our journey towards building our first commercial plant.” The company plans further trials in 2027 as it develops the engineering basis for scale-up.
REFNOVA produces two principal outputs. The ethanol can be supplied into an alcohol-to-jet route, where it is upgraded through additional catalytic processing into hydrocarbons suitable for aviation fuel. The biochar retains a portion of the biomass carbon in a stable solid material that can be used in applications including soil improvement, cement and asphalt.
Nova Pangaea is developing that route through Project Speedbird with British Airways and LanzaJet. The programme envisages UK facilities converting locally sourced waste and residues into bioethanol, with LanzaJet technology used downstream to produce sustainable aviation fuel. Government support has previously been awarded through the Advanced Fuels Fund.
The commercial opportunity is being created partly by regulation. The UK SAF Mandate began in 2025 and requires suppliers to meet an increasing share of jet fuel demand with qualifying sustainable fuel. The main obligation is 3.6% in 2026, rising to 10% in 2030 and 22% in 2040.
The mandate also limits the amount of hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids that can be used towards the main obligation as the market develops. HEFA can account for all of the required SAF in 2026, but the cap falls to 71% of the main obligation in 2030 and 35% in 2040. The policy is intended to leave room for pathways using different feedstocks and conversion technologies rather than allowing waste oils and fats to dominate the mandate indefinitely.
That creates space for lignocellulosic routes such as REFNOVA, but regulation cannot make an immature process economical by itself. Commercial plants still have to secure feedstock at predictable specification and cost, operate at high availability, convert intermediate products efficiently and sell fuel at a price that works after transport, upgrading and certification.
Feedstock logistics will become more visible as the process scales. A demonstration unit taking three tonnes per day can be supplied comparatively simply; a commercial facility would need a much larger and more regular flow of residues, with storage, handling and preprocessing designed around seasonal and geographic variation. The carbon case also depends on those logistics because transport and process energy feed into lifecycle emissions calculations.
Nova Pangaea says the biochar co-product can improve the overall carbon balance by retaining some biogenic carbon outside the atmosphere. The final emissions performance of commercial SAF would still be determined through the applicable lifecycle methodology, including feedstock origin, energy inputs, transport and the fate of co-products. Endurance testing answers a narrower engineering question: whether the core conversion system can keep running on representative material.
The next step is scale rather than another proof-of-concept claim. Nova Pangaea has demonstrated longer continuous operation and will use the data to refine a first commercial design, but the throughput gap between three tonnes per day and an economically useful fuel plant remains substantial. Equipment sizing, solids handling, heat integration and reliability all become harder as that gap closes.
Teesside provides an industrial setting with process skills, logistics and existing energy infrastructure, but the first commercial plant will still need finance, feedstock contracts, engineering completion and an offtake route for its products. The 72-hour result strengthens the technical evidence available to those decisions; it does not remove them. The more revealing milestone will be whether the same process can maintain yield and availability when the operating period is measured in months rather than days.
