Sierra Hotel: Los Alamos, Gevo to Develop Ultra Long-Range Missile, Aviation Fuels

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Imagine, for example, a Boeing 777 flying non-stop between any two cities in the world. Or F-18A/F Superhornets adding significant weapon loads, or up to 30% to flight range. It’s like getting a new generation of aircraft without the multi-billion price tag.

Gevo and Los Alamos National Lab have commenced a project to make it happen. The Digest investigates.

News has emerged from Gevo in Colorado and New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Lab that the two will collaborate to improve the energy density of Gevo hydrocarbon products to meet product specifications for tactical fuels for specialized military applications such as RJ-4, RJ-6 and JP-10, which are currently purchased by the US Department of Defense (DoD).

High energy-density fuels are currently used in air and sea-launched cruise missiles used by the US military forces. If this project is successful in scaling the fuels cost-effectively, there may be an even broader application in the general aviation sector, enabling higher energy density jet fuel that would provide superior mileage to traditional aviation fuels.

Gevo and LANL are looking to develop a low-cost, catalytic technology that would be bolted-on to Gevo’s existing isobutanol-to-hydrocarbons process to produce high energy density fuels). With the successful scale-up of this technology, it is believed that Gevo’s HEDFs could be produced at a lower cost than the petroleum-based equivalent, even at current oil prices.

ChemCatBio, a consortium within the US Department of Energy, awarded funding to LANL in support of the project.

At the time, we reported that the military has been paying as much as $25 per gallon for for certain types of advanced, high performance fuel used in limited quantities, including JP-10. It costs so much to make by conventional means that its use is typically restricted to air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles.

The JP-10 conundrum

What makes JP-10 attractive? Specifically, it has 11 percent higher density than conventional JP-8 (Jet A) fuel – clocking in at 142,000 BTUs per gallon compared to 125,000 for jet fuel (gasoline, by the way, has 115,000 BTUs).

Now, what military officials will assure you is that it costs so much because they’re not buying much – entirely true.

The whole problem of JP-10 is that, irrespective of volume, it is going to cost one heck of a lot if made from petroleum because refining the molecule in question, exo-tetrahydrodicyclopentadiene, from crude oil is like processing diamonds out of dirt.

All of which reminds us that a renaissance in fuel development — for military or aviation purposes — may well be upon us. The arrival of synthetic biology, a new generation of catalysts, improved lab skill and the availability of cellulosic sources for fuels — this potent mix of new materials and strategies is being employed in some of the US’s leading labs to explore the new opportunities for high-performance fuels.

Let’s look at some of the molecules that deliver at the 140,000 range of JP-10, and beyond.