Thursday, October 2, 2008

Materia Lands Army Funding For Fuel Additive

Pasadena-based Materia has scored Army funding for a program focused on developing fire resistant fuel additives, the firm announced Wednesday. Materia, which is commercializing olefin metathesis catalyst technology developed at Caltech, said that the funding is going towards technology to provide greater fire protection for fuel tanks. Materia explained that enemy combatants currently target fuel tanks with their improved explosive devices (IEDs) and small munitions, in hopes of creating a fuel explosion. The additive technology Materia is working on would prevent those explosions without harming fuel performance. Amount of the funding for the program was not disclosed. Materia said successful product development could also benefit commercial avaiation and automotive racing.