DARPA to brief industry Friday on project to harvest energy for battery charging using local CO2 sources

ARLINGTON, Va. – U.S. military researchers will brief industry by webcast on Friday for an upcoming project to generate fuel from local sources of carbon dioxide to provide electric power and battery charging for military battlefield operations.

Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., will conduct proposers day briefings on the Expeditionary Carbon Utilization for Energy Resilience and Stabilization (ExCURSion) program from 11 a.m. to 4:50 p.m. on Friday 1 March 2024 during an online webcast.

Batteries and fossil fuels dominate today's technologies for portable energy storage and use by expeditionary forces. While batteries can be recharged from any voltage source, yet most chargers suffer from energy density so low as to make them infeasible for military missions that require low size, weight, and power consumption (SWaP). Although hydrocarbon-based fossil fuels have much higher energy density, they still require regular, costly, and dangerous resupply.

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Instead, DARPA researchers seek the ability to generate fuel from local sources of carbon dioxide to combine the high energy density of fossil fuels with the energy-source-agnostic advantage of electric systems to revolutionize expeditionary energy logistics.

Combining carbon dioxide capture and storage with carbon dioxide reduction to energy-storing fuel would enable a completely closed system able to capture its own combustion stream and recharge its fuel content on energy input, researchers say.

Such a system could take advantage of the high energy density of traditional fossil fuels and the operational flexibility of an electric battery system.

The ExCURSion program seeks to enable carbon dioxide reduction, capture, and storage as key components for a future self-enclosed system to create liquid carbon fuels for storage and use on military missions. This approach could enable safe, field-deployable, high-density, and rechargeable energy storage.

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The goals of the ExCURSion proposers day are to introduce the research community to the ExCURSion program vision and goals; explain the mechanics of a DARPA program and milestones; and encourage teaming among potential bidders.

Just last November a researcher at Boston University in Boston won a DARPA Young Faculty Award for chemically developing a new material to capture carbon dioxide in a targeted and efficient way, according to a story published by the Boston University College of Engineering.

DARPA recognized Joerg Werner for his work in developing a material to capture carbon dioxide in efforts to isolate and remove this gas from breathable air supplies in enclosed spaces like submarines, underground bunkers, and crewed spacecraft.

“Especially for a space station, you need a very small, lightweight air purification system that uses very little energy,” Werner was quoted in a story headlined Clearing the Air in the Boston University publication (https://www.bu.edu/eng/2023/11/27/clearing-the-air/).

Related: Clearing the Air

Meanwhile, companies like ExxonMobil in Houston and Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, are recognized leaders in the capture and storage of carbon dioxide.

DARPA officials say they will release the ExCURSion solicitation in March 2024. Register for the briefing webcast no later than Tuesday 27 Feb. 2024 online at https://events.sa-meetings.com/website/69800/.

Email questions and concerns to DARPA's Keith Whitener, the ExCURSion program manager, at [email protected]. More information is online at https://sam.gov/opp/4fc5b15cacf1400190b49e1e57666384/view.