Anna Forrester
The U.S. Navy has awarded $2.7 million in grants to six research teams from Purdue University as part of efforts to identify or develop alternative sources of energy to power naval assets.
The university said Monday the interdisciplinary teams each received $450,000 under the Navy Enterprise Partnership Teaming with Universities for National Excellence program to support their respective projects.
“These interdisciplinary projects came from a diverse lineup of nearly 30 submitted proposals in energy storage, renewable energy technologies, high energy and pulsed power, smart grid, flexible electronics, energy efficiency and systems engineering,” said Maureen McCann, director of the Purdue Energy Center and chair of the proposal selection committee.
The projects focus on areas such as thermal management systems, lithium ion batteries, nanotechnology and portable hydrogen generation.
Purdue noted the NEPTUNE program aims to help the Navy and Marine Corps reach their goal of generating at least 50 percent of their energy needs from alternative sources by 2020.
The university led the program’s pilot phase in 2015 with total grants of $3 million for the development of a research facility to host tests on biomass-based aviation fuel and a course on power and energy.
