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ARA operates a research
facility consisting of general office and space dedicated for
laboratory, bench- and pilot- RDT&E work. The facility is located in
downtown Panama City, adjacent to St. Andrews Bay with line of site
to Coastal Systems Station, Tyndall AFB, and the Gulf of Mexico.
This facility consists of:
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a 20,500- ft2 area with
12,500 ft2 for general office space, including a 600 ft2
conference room equipped with VTC and large screen projection
capabilities;
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a 3,350 ft2 high bay
demo/fabrication area;
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a 900 ft2 prototype
development lab with 20 foot ceilings, 240V and 120 V power, and 75
linear feet of bench space; and
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a 500 ft2 fully
equipped analytical lab.
Additional lab space is available
within this facility for custom build-out as the need arises. The
facilities contain state-of-the-art laboratory-, bench-, and
pilot-scale equipment used for various chemical, microbiological,
environmental, and energy related research and development projects.
The facilities maintain all appropriate federal and state permits.
The lab spaces are
equipped with chemical handling equipment (hoods, balances, beakers,
stir plates, etc.) and other standard laboratory apparatus
(microscopes, hotplates, vacuum and liquid pumps, compressed gases, pH
and specific-ion meters, temperature and flow gauges, sieves,
temperature-controlled liquid baths, automated mixing devices, ovens,
furnaces, autoclaves, etc.). Advanced analytical instrumentation such
as ion chromatographs, GC-MS, Raman, UV-visible-NIR
spectrophotometers, as well high pressure liquid chromatographs are
available. All of the laboratory equipment is owned by ARA. The
prototype development lab space has a four foot wide door, twenty foot
high ceiling, and a six foot wide walk in chemical exhaust hood ideal
for performing small-pilot scale work. These facilities have access to
all analytical instrumentation contained described above, reducing the
time and costs associated with analysis of samples during pilot-scale
research.
In addition to the
laboratory space the facility has high bay demo/fabrication area, with
a 16 foot roll-up door for delivery, assembly, testing, and operation
of large-scale pilot-plant systems. This facility includes all machine
and hand tools, equipment, power access, ventilation, lift systems,
and floor drains necessary for design and assembly, and check-out of
pilot-scale hardware, electronics, and software. The facilities are
also equipped with a broad array of flow-through columns and
reactors, pumps, gauges, valves, connectors, tubing, liquid and gas
vessels, electronic data acquisition instrumentation, etc., necessary
for performing pilot-scale research. This facility provides ARA the
ability to scale-up processes and demonstrate their effectiveness
before fielding applications.
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