JOJOBA OIL-BASED NAVAL FUELS

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 USN’s 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.