Ogden Engineering & Associates and the University of North Dakota propose to partner under the United States Navy (USN) STTR program to adapt and commercialize technology to convert jojoba oil into marine diesel (F-76) and aviation turbine (JP-5) fuels. A reliable domestic supply is important to the USN. Crude oil import requirements and fluctuations/increases in crude oil feedstock costs negatively impact USNs fuel budgets and security of supply. The crop oil conversion technology utilized in this project has been proven for other oils (soybean, canola). However, the non-edible oil from the jojoba shrub is a previously unexplored feedstock that grows primarily in areas where food crops are not currently produced. Jojoba-based fuels will provide USN with a domestic, CO2-neutral, sustainable fuel supply, and provide a new economic opportunity for agrarian communities in the arid Southwestern U.S., including Native American communities. The Phase I technical objectives are to experimentally determine estimated product yields, conduct a jojoba agrarian and logistics study, determine preliminary design parameters for commercial jojoba oil conversion facilities, and predict the commercial feasibility for a series of different scenarios involving the processing of jojoba oil into fuels and chemicals.
Benefit: Processing non-edible jojoba oil crops with the UND Crop Oil Conversion Technology (COCT) will have numerous benefits for the US Navy. These facilities will provide a domestic, CO2-neutral, sustainable fuel supply to USN. Further, the costs to USN of adopting renewable fuels is minimized because this technology produces fuels from a renewable resource that meet current military specifications at prices that are commercially competitive. The development of this technology also represents a new economic opportunity for agrarian communities in the arid Southwestern U.S., including Native American communities, as well as arid or semi-arid regions across the globe. The overall commercialization goal is to develop the COCT technology for processing jojoba oils into marine fuels and commercial chemical feedstocks and to license the technology to clients throughout the Southwestern United States including tribal cooperative ag-energy enterprises on various Native American reservations and/or bioenergy companies coupled with jojoba farmer supply contracts. These clients in turn will supply 100% renewable F-76 and JP-5 to the Navy. We anticipate establishing one to three regional COCT production facilities within the first five years after completing Phase II with a nominal capacity of thirty to fifty million liters per year.
Keywords: jojoba oil, marine fuels, Crop oil conversion technology, domestic CO2-neutral sustainable fuel supply
