nanoMaterials Discovery Corporation (NDC) announced that it has been selected to receive a $4.9MM contract from the Department of Defense to develop manufacturing technologies for a new class of fuel cells that utilize energetic materials, such as explosives and propellants, as fuels. This new class of fuel cells has a broad spectrum of applications in both the military and commercial sectors. Applications include point-of-use and portable power, fusing, improving the safety of land mines and cluster munitions, and remediation of old and obsolete ordinance. New capabilities for "self-sterilizing" smart land mines and cluster munitions that render themselves harmless after a certain period of time are made possible by NDC's advanced materials and energetics technologies. The new manufacturing methods developed under this contract will allow the company to produce fuel cells for field testing.
"NDC's advanced high performance materials and catalysts allow us to harness the power of explosives and propellants to make electricity for military applications", said Dr. Don Montgomery, President and CEO of NDC, "We are particularly excited about using our technology to further advance the position of the United States defense community as the world leader in helping reduce the harm caused by unexploded cluster munitions and land mines. We are grateful to have this opportunity to reduce the humanitarian consequences of armed conflicts and to add to the commercial high technology infrastructure in Wyoming at the same time."
NDC anticipates initial manufacturing operations to begin at its new facility at the Arundel Technology Park in Cheyenne, Wyoming by Q4 2008.
