> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://nexi.fund/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Biodiesel Waste Is Becoming Jet Fuel: The 75,000-Liter Proof - URL: https://nexi.fund/cemvita-fermoil-saf-scale-up-2026/ - Published: 2026-08-31T10:00:59.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-31T10:00:59.000Z - Description: Cemvita proved its FermOil process at 75,000 liters, turning biodiesel waste into a drop-in renewable oil for sustainable aviation fuel. The scale-up path, not the headline volume, is the signal. - Author: Nexi.fund Labs - Tags: Energy & Climate, #mode-5, #hook-statistic, #track-F, #brand-heavy 75,000 liters. That is the volume of oil-producing fermentation Cemvita just completed at a Belgian pilot plant, working from the waste stream of biodiesel production. The number matters less than the path that led to it. The Houston biotech firm walked its FermOil process up from bench scale through 2-liter, 30-liter, 1,500-liter and 15,000-liter fermentations before the 75,000-liter campaign at Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant in Ghent. The company calls it one of the most important technical milestones in its history, and it closes the gap between a working lab process and a working industrial one. ``` TIMELINE: FermOil scale-up at Cemvita ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 2 L ──── 30 L ──── 1,500 L ──── 15,000 L ──── 75,000 L 🔬 🧪 🏭 🏭 ◉ NOW Proof Pilot Pilot+ Demo Industrial ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Source: Cemvita, Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant, May 2026 ``` FermOil moved from lab to industrial demonstration in staged volume jumps, holding performance across a 2,500× increase. ## The byproduct nobody priced in Biodiesel plants produce crude glycerin as a leftover of the transesterification process. It is low value, and the market treats it as a disposal problem. Cemvita engineered microbes that eat that glycerin and excrete a renewable natural oil it calls FermOil. The choice of feedstock is the quiet part of the announcement. Most industrial bio-oil fermentation runs on sugar. Sugar is expensive, competes with food, and spikes with weather. Crude glycerin is a waste product already sitting in every biodiesel facility in the world. Its process turns a liability into the input. Europe has already moved this feedstock to the front of the policy queue. Crude glycerin is listed under RED III Annex IX Part A, the advanced-feedstock category European regulators say should anchor the next phase of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) growth. That classification matters: it shapes which fuels count toward blending mandates and how feedstock scarcity is judged. ## Scale is the test The synthetic-biology world is littered with processes that work in a flask and die in a tank. Microbes behave differently at volume. Aeration changes, heat gradients appear, contamination risk compounds, and batch-to-batch drift kills the economics. > The hardest part of industrial biotechnology is not proving the science in the lab, it is proving performance consistency and robustness at industrial relevant scales.— Moji Karimi, CEO, Cemvita Cemvita's answer is consistency. Luciano Zamberlan, its vice president of engineering, said in the release that the fermentation control strategy stayed stable across multiple vessel runs from 30 liters up to 75,000\. Reproducibility at that range, not the headline volume, is what justifies the commercial conversations now underway. "Biology is becoming infrastructure," Karimi said when the campaign completed. ## Drop-in means no new refinery FermOil is designed to feed existing HEFA (hydro-processed esters and fatty acids) and co-processing lines. That is the crucial compatibility play. Airlines and refiners do not need to build new infrastructure to accept the oil; they run it through the same hydroprocessing units that already make renewable diesel and SAF from used cooking oil and tallow. It is also a supply argument. IATA data shows SAF output nearly doubled in 2025 but still covered only about 0.6% of airline fuel use. The constraint is feedstock, not refining capacity. Waste oils are finite, and feedstock scarcity keeps SAF costs high. A fermentation route that creates oil from a byproduct expands the raw-material base without taking land or food crops. As we wrote in August, [carbon-recycling fermentation](https://eclibra.com/lanzatech-carbon-recycling-biomanufacturing-2026?ref=nexi.fund) is already proving itself at commercial scale as a fuel feedstock pathway. Cemvita has spent years aligning itself with the airline side of this. United Airlines Ventures and Oxy Low Carbon Ventures invested early, and United signed an agreement in 2021 to buy up to 1 billion gallons of fuel produced through its biology. The company also produced HEFA-compatible fuel from waste carbon in a 2024 breakthrough. The scale-up story is the latest step in that longer arc. ## Brazil is the first market The commercial path leads to Brazil. It is where the company has its first signed plant agreement, and the source of the glycerin problem it is trying to solve. In March 2026, Cemvita signed a memorandum of understanding with Sumitomo Corporation do Brasil to integrate FermOil production with renewable natural gas (RNG) at a shared facility. The partners will evaluate roughly five waste and by-product feedstocks for combined bio-oil and RNG output, with a steering committee tracking milestones toward 2026 execution. Sumitomo treats Brazil as a long-term biofuel supply hub, and the pairing gives it a trading partner with distribution reach. An earlier MOU with Be8, signed at Davos in January 2025, covers converting glycerin into SAF feedstock, and a 2025 agreement with the state of Rio Grande do Sul commits it to building a FermOil production plant in southern Brazil. Karimi describes every biodiesel plant as a potential platform for renewable oil production rather than a competitor for it. ⚠️ **What could break the thesis** Glycerin is a byproduct, but its price is not fixed forever. If enough plants adopt fermentation routes, the cheap feedstock gets priced in. The harder risk is the market itself: SAF offtake depends on airline willingness to pay a premium, and carbon-credit values can move faster than plant construction. Cemvita's plant in Brazil is still pre-FID; the 75,000-liter campaign de-risks the technology, not the financing. ## What the milestone buys The 75,000-liter campaign does not produce jet fuel. It produces the oil that refiners turn into jet fuel, and it does so at a scale where the economics can finally be tested honestly. For an investor, the relevant numbers are the trajectory, not the endpoint: a process that held its metrics across a 2,500× scale-up, a feedstock with policy tailwinds and no land footprint, and a commercial partner with distribution in the world's largest biodiesel market. The next checkpoint is a final investment decision in Brazil, where the technology meets its first construction budget at commercial scale. Cemvita's claim, in one line, is that the oil business is no longer only about crude extraction. Every biodiesel plant already stores its feedstock in tanks. [ Cemvita Successfully Demonstrates 75,000-Liter Industrial Scale-Up of FermOil Platform Primary source: the company's announcement of the campaign, including the full scale-up path from 2 liters to 75,000 and management quotes. Cemvita Newsroom ](https://www.cemvita.com/cemvita-successfully-demonstrates-75000-liter-industrial-scale-up-of-fermoil-platform-using-crude-glycerin-a-byproduct-of-biodiesel-production?ref=nexi.fund) The company release is the anchor for the scale-up timeline and the feedstock logic. [ Cemvita 75,000-Liter Scale-Up Announcement | Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant The pilot plant that ran the campaign confirms the fermentation details and adds the RED III Annex IX Part A feedstock classification. Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant ](https://www.bbeu.org/news/press-releases/28-may-2026-cemvita-successfully-demonstrates-75000-liter-industrial-scale-up-of-fermoil-platform-using-crude-glycerin-a-byproduct-of-biodiesel-production?ref=nexi.fund) Independent confirmation from the facility that executed the run. [ Cemvita reaches breakthrough milestone for sustainable fuel feedstock production Trade-press coverage of the campaign, including commercial deployment plans in Brazil, Europe and the UK. Energy Capital Houston ](https://energycapitalhtx.com/cemvita-fermoil-saf-scale?ref=nexi.fund) Context on the commercial conversations the milestone is designed to enable.