Ford Tops ARPA Grants for Natural Gas Storage Research

Ford Motor Co. has won a $5.5 million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop a fuel tank that stores natural gas in a porous material.

The award is the largest among 13 new projects funded under ARPA's Methane Opportunities for Vehicular Energy program. The $30 million effort aims to find ways to develop NG storage tanks that are smaller, less expensive and better suited to small passenger vehicles.

Among the other major MOVE projects:

$4.4 million to the United Technologies Research Center to develop a low-cost modular NG storage tank for light-duty vehicles

$4.3 million to the University of Texas's Center for Electromechanics to develop a single-piston compressor as part of an at-home NG refueling system

$3.4 million to Eaton Corp. to develop an at-home compressor that uses a liquid rather than solid piston to compress NG

$3 million to Texas A&M University to study low-cost, highly adsorbent materials that could be used to store NG at low pressure

$3 million to Calumet, Mich.-based REL Inc. to engineer a low-cost, conformable NG tank containing a foam core to boost storage capacity