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DARPA Seeks to Develop Military Aviation BioFuel |
Released on Wednesday, July 12, 2006
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has released a
solicitation calling for the exploration of energy alternatives and fuel
efficiency efforts in a bid to reduce the military’s reliance on traditional
fuel for aircraft.
DARPA is looking for processes that will efficiently produce alternative
non-petroleum based military jet fuel from agriculture or aquaculture crops.
Current commercial processes do not produce alternative fuels that meet the
higher energy density and wide operating temperature range necessary for
military aviation uses.
The program is currently outlined in a recently issued broad agency announcement
and is known as The BioFuels program. The goal of the BioFuels program is to
develop an affordable alternative production process that will achieve a 60
percent or greater conversion efficiency, by energy content, of crop oil to
military aviation fuel (JP-8) and elucidate a path to 90 percent conversions.
DARPA seeks processes that use limited sources of external energy, that are
adaptable to a range or blend of feedstock crop oils, and that produce process
by-products that have ancillary manufacturing or industrial value.
Current biodiesel fuels are 25 percent lower in energy density than JP-8 and
exhibit unacceptable cold- flow features at the lower extreme of the required
JP-8 operating temperature range (minus 50 degrees F). It is anticipated that
the key technology developments needed to obtain the program goal will result
from a cross-disciplinary approach spanning the fields of process chemistry and
engineering, materials engineering, biotechnology, and propulsion system
engineering.
The program is an exploratory evaluation of processing crop oils into a JP-8
surrogate biofuel, resulting in a laboratory-scale production to be tested at a
Department of Defense test facility. Successful proposers are expected to
deliver a minimum of 100 liters of JP-8 surrogate biofuel for initial government
laboratory testing.
DARPA will be hosting a Proposers Day, July 25, 2006, in Denver Colorado, as a
venue to provide information about the BioFuels program, promote discussion on
the topic, address questions from potential proposers, and provide a forum for
potential proposers to present their capabilities for teaming opportunities.
Details on the Proposers Day are available through the BioFuels website at http://www.darpa.mil/ato/solicit/Biofuels/index.htm.
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DARPA - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
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