Lydian is on a mission to decarbonize the aviation industry. The company uses captured CO2, water, and renewable electricity to produce a drop-in alternative for today's fossil-based jet fuel, with up to 95% lower emissions.
THE CHALLENGE
Without significant funding early in their journey, Lydian had nowhere to build their technology that met their technical requirements at a price they could afford.
THE SOLUTION
With the flexibility and resources available at The Engine, Lydian is now 12 months ahead of schedule — time they could have otherwise spent just building a lab to prove their solution.
““The flexibility to grow within The Engine has been crucial to our success.”
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Paige OmuraHead of Business Operations at Lydian
Aviation is expected to account for 20% of global carbon emissions by 2050. However, the industry is considered a "hard-to-abate" sector for decarbonization for several reasons. Aviation demands highly energy-dense fuels to power aircraft for long-distance flights, and alternatives to fossil fuels like batteries or hydrogen face significant challenges in terms of energy storage capacity, cost and weight. What's more, the long lifespan of commercial aircraft make it difficult to replace existing aircraft with more sustainable models.
Lydian is developing a potent solution: their novel technology produces low-cost, sustainable fuels and chemicals from captured CO2, starting with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Their drop-in alternative to conventional fossil-based jet fuels has the potential to help decarbonize aviation. But first, the team needed to prove that its SAF solution could work at scale.
The team started its journey like many of The Engine’s residents: as a participant in Blueprint by The Engine™, a tech translation program designed to help innovators discover the commercial potential of their science and engineering breakthroughs. Founder Branko Zugic had worked on a Tough Tech team in the past, as the head of R&D at MIT spinout Open Water Power, but had never led a Tough Tech startup on his own. The Blueprint program equipped him with the skills and expertise to make the transition from scientist to leader.
After Blueprint, Branko connected with CEO Joe Rodden, a Harvard Business School alumnus who had previously worked with another Tough Tech company, Form Energy. The two quickly realized that finding “plug-and-play” chemistry lab space was critical to proving their technology and scaling up their R&D efforts.
They had a small team at the time — only three people — and limited seed funding, but to validate their e-fuel ideas, they needed specialized lab equipment like fume hoods, lab benches, and furnaces. It was a classic chicken and egg problem facing many Tough Tech teams: without significant investment, they wouldn’t have the funding to build their own lab space, and without the lab space to validate their technology, it would be difficult to attract significant investment.
“When we scale up our R&D experiments, we often need more new lab infrastructure. We have been able to expand our lab space by talking to The Engine staff and adding an additional lab bay right next to our existing one, reducing the burden on us to find a new space and face downtime moving into it.”
Paige OmuraHead of Business Operations, Lydian
The specialized equipment available at The Engine allowed the Lydian team to rapidly iterate on their prototypes. “As we prototyped various versions of our reactor, we needed access to expensive machining equipment that we would not be able to afford on our own,” Paige continued, “Having the machine shop in The Engine has helped us accelerate development and avoid long lead times that often come with working with external vendors and machine shops.”
Also critical was The Engine’s network of industry experts and its knowledge base from working with dozens of founders across climate tech and manufacturing. “We cannot emphasize enough how valuable The Engine’s expert network has been to us. Ranging from policy and government affairs, to lab safety and operations, to HR and recruiting, The Engine staff has organized events, pulled together resources, and made strategic introductions for Lydian that have accelerated both our business and technical development.”
The regulatory and government affairs support has been particularly valuable for Lydian. The Engine helped the team secure an award from DARPA and connected the team with Massport, the entity that runs Boston’s Logan Airport. As the team prepares to launch its first demonstration plant in Charlestown, MA, The Engine brokered talks with state and local regulators to ensure compliance at the site, and helped the team secure a custom-designed HVAC system for the site.
Lydian is quickly outgrowing The Engine. Within 18 months of joining The Engine, the team reached an agreement with RTI International to build a pilot plant in North Carolina capable of producing up to 25 gallons of SAF per day. By 2030, Lydian has ambitions to produce 20 million gallons of SAF per year, accelerating the path to decarbonized flights.
