The program objective seen in these slides is to take a technology from Technical Readiness Level 2 to TRL 3/4 — a technology that directly upgrades ethanol to a drop-in hydrocarbon fuel at a high yield.
Among the investors here are three of the technology gurus behind Vertimass – Chaitanya Narula, Martin KellerBrian H. Davison — although the principal investigator is Tim Theiss, and the project comes from Oak Ridge National Lab, which licensed the technology to Vertimass. This illuminating presentation was give at the most recent DOE Peer Review meetings, and outlines some of the more interesting technical challenges around creating drop-in fuels and a super-hot pathway for addressing those. And an early look at what would become Vertimass technology.
