BioFuels
Program Manager: Dr. Douglas Kirkpatrick
The Defense Department has been directed to explore a wide range of energy alternatives and fuel efficiency efforts in a bid to reduce the military's reliance on oil to power its aircraft, ground vehicles and non-nuclear ships. The goal of the BioFuels program is to develop an affordable and highly efficient alternative process of converting crop oil to a JP-8 surrogate. The primary technical objective of the BioFuels program is to achieve minimum 60% conversion efficiency, by energy content, of crop oil to JP-8 surrogate and identify development opportunities to achieve 90% efficiency. The cost and availability of the necessary feedstock materials will be considered. The development of conversion process technologies compatible with oils from a broad range of crops, potentially including new crop stocks selected specifically for their oil harvest, is preferred.
The current deliverable is a minimum of 100 liters of JP-8 surrogate to be tested in a suitable DOD test facility. The desired outcome is a JP-surrogate fuel that is suitable for current JP-8 military applications.
