Maintaining a body of armed forces generates a lot of waste the military can’t afford to leave behind. Fortunately, some of Iowa’s biodiesel developers and lawmakers have devised a way to help reduce that clutter.

In a press conference Thursday morning, Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, announced he had secured an additional $1.65 million for the “Battlefield Clutter – Waste to Energy” project.

“This project, when put in place, could save more than $1 million a month,” Latham said.

The idea came to the Ames-based Renewable Energy Group a year ago.

“Basically, we found that biodiesel is a natural solvent,” said Alicia Clancy, communications specialist for REG. “So, if you put some waste products, specifically plastics, into biodiesel, they will dissolve. And afterwards, you can still use the biodiesel as fuel.”

The first plan to use this idea is slated to go to the military, and supplement their Force Provider program.

“That’s a term for military bases in staging areas,” said Mitch Safer, of General Atomics. “Basically, a Force Provider is the same thing as a standard military base here in the U.S., except these are portable. Each base can support between 550 to 3000 troops.”

Each of these bases generate about 3,200 pounds of waste every five days, and about 10 percent of that waste is plastic material. This program will help utilize that 10 percent and convert it into fuel.

“That 10 percent turns into around 40 gallons of biodiesel,” Zafer said. “Also, while we can use 10 percent now, that number will increase with future research.”

Slated as a three year project, REG has been working with General Atomics and the engineering and chemistry departments at Iowa State to further refine this process.

“ISU has been in the center of renewable fuel since the beginning,” said Jeff Stroburg, CEO of REG. “It’s only natural that they be involved in the process.”

The one downside to the project was discussed by Balaji Narasimhan, associate dean of chemical and biological engineering.

“Dissolving material makes the biodiesel more viscous,” he said. “The more viscous a fuel, the more engine performance is affected. It takes longer for the engine to break down the fuel.”

Narasimhan is performing research to see what kinds of polymers are easily dissolved in biodiesel, and the limits of material per amount of fuel that can be dissolved.

“Some polymers take 70 minutes to fully dissolve, and we want to find the ones that can dissolve in 70 seconds,” he said.

Another aspect of this project is what could be done with it in civilian life.

“It’s possible that we discover what polymers are dissolved extremely easily, and then, through working with plastic manufacturers, they contain things in more of those specific polymers,” Stroberg said. “It could change the way garbage is handled.”

Zafer was confident that this technology could have a huge impact on both the military and civilian markets.

“We’ve shown last year that this process works, and we hope to refine it even further,” he said.