The US Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD )has signed a deal with Albemarle for it to produce biojet fuel derived from bio n-butanol which will be provided by Cobalt Technoloigies.
Albemarle will use technology provided by NAWCWD to produce the renewable jet fuel from Cobalt's n-butanol in its processing facility located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The manufacturing contract with Albemarle began in February 2012 and is being funded by NAWCWD. Once finished, the fuel will be tested at the NAWCWD facility and then will go through the process to receive military certification through the Department of Defense. Once this has happened, larger production can occur.
The science team working on the project focused on scaling and optimising the dehydration chemistry for the conversion of bio n-butanol to 1-butene, followed by oligomerisation of the biobutene into jet fuel, based on a process developed at NAWCWD in China Lake, California.
It was following this research that the contract was awarded to Albemarle.
The production is part of the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement signed between Cobalt and NAWCWD back in 2010 which focuses on developing technology to convert bio n-butanol into renewable jet and diesel fuel.
