Shaping the future of mobility

© Jean-Jacques Ruchti

Producing carbon-neutral fuels from sunlight and air: it sounds like science fiction, but has been attracting a lot of attention around the world – and is now becoming reality thanks to a new process developed at ETH Zurich.

The solar plant, developed by researchers led by Professor Aldo Steinfeld, produces synthetic, liquid fuels that only release as much CO2 during the combustion process as they previously absorbed from the air. With the ETH spin-off Synhelion, alumnus and entrepreneur Philipp Furler wants to scale up the technology to an industrial level to help reduce global CO2 emissions. He is being supported by ETH’s Pioneer Fellowship, a funding programme that enables young, highly ambitious researchers to make their research results market-ready more quickly thanks to seed capital, access to ETH labs, mentoring and entrepreneurial expertise.