RTI International has landed a $3.1 million federal grant for development of renewable energy involving ammonia synthesis  as part of a recently announced $35 million federal initiative.

The funding is coming from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

The grant was announced Monday.

ARPA-E has created what it calls a Renewable Energy to Fuels through Utilization of Energy-Dense Liquids program,(REFUEL) in order to transform “electrical energy from renewable resources into energy-dense carbon-neutral liquid fuels and back into electricity or hydrogen on demand.”

What is REFUEL?

Most liquid fuels used in transportation today are derived from petroleum and burned in internal combustion engines. These energy-dense fuels are currently economical, but they remain partially reliant on imported petroleum and are highly carbon intensive. Projects in the REFUEL program will develop scalable technologies for converting water, nitrogen and carbon dioxide into energy-dense carbon-neutral liquid fuels (CNLFs) and back into electricity or hydrogen fuel on demand. The REFUEL program will provide $35 million to 16 projects that will accelerate the shift to domestically produced transportation fuels and enable greater integration of renewable energy sources onto the grid, improving grid resiliency and American energy security.

Source: ARPA-E

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“We are excited to partner with ARPA-E in this initiative, which is aimed at accelerating the shift to domestically-produced transportation fuels,” said Raghubir Gupta, senior vice president of the Energy Technology Division at RTI, in the announcement. “REFUEL will also help enable greater integration of renewable energy sources onto the grid, improving grid resiliency and American energy security by using a carbon-free fuel.”

RTI is tasked with developing an ammonia synthesis system “to support renewable energy.”

The Triangle-based independent nonprofit says it “will build an innovative ammonia synthesis system that can operate at lower temperatures and pressures than established technologies. … If successful, the system will be economically viable and able to start and stop in synchronization with intermittent renewable power sources.”