'Give me $20,000 and I will save you $200,000 ...'

  • Published
  • By Karen Abeyasekere
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  With his dreadlocks and guitar, he may not look quite like the mad scientist from the 'Back to the Future' movies, but Paul Murfitt, 100th Civil Engineer Squadron Liquid Fuels Maintenance, has his own invention that he's built and put into practice. His ideas and hard work have already saved the Air Force around $100,000 - and are set to save a whole lot more. 

Mr. Murfitt, a 28-year civil service employee who has worked in 100th CES for the last 11 years, came up with the idea of making a filter which cleans contaminated JP-8 aircraft fuel, enabling it to be recycled and used as heating fuel.

"Ever since I've worked in fuels, I've always hated seeing waste fuel being taken away and I wanted to do something about it," said the technician charge hand, from Isleham.

He formulated his idea in 2005 when a cost-free contract to remove waste fuel ended, due to changes in regulations. The contaminated fuel became classified as hazardous waste, and the disposal cost was $2 per gallon, in addition to the $2 per gallon it cost to buy it originally.

"I knew everyone was going to start getting mad at the cost of about 50,000 gallons of fuel per year, and I realized there was no way we could reduce the amount of waste fuel. I also knew that when the contractors removed it, it was then turned into heating fuel," Mr. Murfitt said.

"I looked at the equipment we already had and what we'd need to purchase to carry out the cleaning process in-house, and decided we could do something here."

Mr. Murfitt said he knew the 100th CES couldn't let it go to contract because the costs would be vast, so he contacted Lt. Col. Scott Hartford, 100th CES commander, and the environmental flight chief, Karl Kunas.

"I told them if they would give me $20,000, I could save them roughly $200,000 (based on 50,000 gallons of fuel at a total of $4 per gallon). They'd already spent $40,000 getting rid of waste fuel since the no-cost contract ended."

Staff in the environmental flight looked at regulations to see if they could do this and comply with all the required standards, and came back with a positive response. Under the pollution prevention budget, they gave him $22,000 to use for everything needed to build the equipment that would clean the fuel.

About 95 percent of the parts and equipment were reclaimed from redundant sources; Mr. Murfitt got pipes and rebuilt and re-welded them where necessary. He also got hold of a filter separator that had been used for filtering aircraft fuel on bulk storage systems, and rebuilt it with modified parts to save on money - the internal parts for that particular piece of equipment would have cost another $28,000.

Though he did most of the work himself, he also had help from his foreman, Paul Gee; coworker, Brian MacKender, and James Tarver, an apprentice from a different flight within civil engineering. It took the trio about six months to build, but for two to three months of that time they were waiting on parts.

"We were always worried about actually getting it to work, as most of the equipment was developed for large bulk storage systems - I was particularly worried about making the automatic valve to control it all."

They designed the valve in a certain way, so in the event of water contamination it would shut the system down automatically. If that happens, the valve senses the pollution, stops the flow and shuts it down.

"I initially tested it with air - when it worked, that was the most exciting part for me," said Mr. Murfitt. "When I commissioned the system, we had the fuel tested - when the lab results came back, they were pretty close to raw JP-8," he said, justifiably proud of the achievement. "We were so relieved - everybody was pushing us, both leadership and the environmental flight. But it did what I had anticipated. Everybody was very excited, and offered more finance towards the project."

The actual filtration process takes just a couple of minutes, and the equipment can recycle about 100 gallons per minute. Mr. Murfitt said he intends to filter it seven times before it can be reused (aircraft fuel is usually re-filtered three times), though he actually designed the filter so it would recycle endlessly.

The waste fuel comes from a variety of sources including maintenance, contaminated fuel from aircraft, and oil and water receptors found on hardstands. It's then pumped from the containers through the filter separator, which removes particles down to one micron (one millionth of a meter). Any water molecules are removed by another filter, which is so fine it allows fuel molecules to pass through it, but stops water. When enough molecules build up, they fall to the bottom of the separator and the waste is automatically removed.

Dr. Ron Ritter, Special Assistant for Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century to Michael W. Wynne, Secretary of the Air Force, and Deputy Director of the Air Force Smart Operations Office, met with the 100th CES technician charge hand June 21 while at RAF Mildenhall during his tour of U.S. Air Forces in Europe.

"RAF Mildenhall's leadership warned me this briefing was 'different', which was a real understatement," said Dr. Ritter. "We went out on the ramp and met Paul Murfitt, who, in a typically British understated way, said he might have something of interest for me. Wow! This guy has taken the idea of 'waste' literally, and identified a way to take highly-contaminated JP-8 and recycle it through a locally engineered system.

The special assistant for AFSO21 to the SECAF was extremely enthusiastic about the British civilian's ideas.

"He's got the lab results to confirm (it works) and is making a case for big savings on HazMat (hazardous materials) disposal and fuel cost - this is a huge win and could be very interesting to bases like Lajes Air Base, Portugal, Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and Guam Air Base. We also sync'ed up with the RAF's Air Vice Marshall, Peter Dye, who was benchmarking AFSO21 in (U.S. Air Forces in Europe). This is a great example of the full diversity of the U.S. Air Force stepping up and really focusing on high impact results," Dr. Ritter said.

So far, $100,000-worth of contaminated fuel has been recycled here, using Mr. Murfitt's equipment. Potentially, 48,000 gallons per day could be recycled.

Born at RAF Ely hospital in 1961, Paul Murfitt spent most of his life in Isleham until five years ago, when he sold his house.

"I bought a 72-foot narrow boat and now live on a remote part of the River Lark with my family," he said. "From where I live, I can see the aircraft circling overhead and the glow of the base lights in the evening."

Apart from his boat, another love of his is the guitar he bought after first starting work at RAF Mildenhall in 1979.

"It was the first thing I bought with my wages, after several months of saving," he said. "I sometimes play at lunchtimes, or if I just want to switch off for a few moments. I just make stuff up really.

"I'll never be very good, as many years ago I broke my fingers on one of the wind socks here. It collapsed when I was taking it down to repair it - well, that's my excuse anyway," he laughed.

Although the filtration equipment is already in full working order, the MoD civilian said he's still tidying things up. It still needs a proper water drain, brackets put on, and other refinements to help it work even better. Once that has all been done, it should be virtually maintenance-free.

The liquid fuels shop is currently recycling about 1,000 gallons per week - a saving of $4,000 per week.

"This has definitely been a team effort, and we got a lot of support," he said. "Everyone has jumped through hoops to help us get this done.

"We've saved so much money by doing this ourselves and using recycled parts - and we did it between other jobs," he added. "This whole project has been a recycling issue."

The results of this project are a perfect example of what AFSO21 is all about, and the results speak for themselves.

"I challenge all Airmen to follow Mr. Murfitt's example of the 'Year of Why' and AFSO21," said Lt. Col. Larry Walker, 100th Air Refueling Wing director of the AFSO21 office. "He saw a problem, asked 'why?' and developed a better way that saves money and is good for the environment! This attitude is critical to the Air Force's long-term success."

This is all very good news, but working with so much fuel every day, just how do you get rid of the smell?

"Unfortunately it's not very easy," said Mr. Murfitt. "I used to wash over and over, but to no avail - I even tried showering in cold water, as someone told me that was more effective. 

"But my family and friends have become used to it - they've long since stopped commenting on the 'eau-de-JP-8'. However, what's lucky is that I can no longer smell it myself!" he laughed.