Announcement of an Exempt Purchase

These drivers cab power multiple atmospheric-pressure plasmas at the surface of liquid water for nitrogen fixation. This is sponsored research and Exempt under (30 ILCS 500 1-13(b)(8)).

This purchase is exempt from the usual selection processes of the Procurement Code because the procurement expenditure is for performing sponsored research and other sponsored activities under grants and contracts funded by the sponsor or by sources other than State appropriations. (30 ILCS 500 / 1-13(b)(8)) As part of the $7.2 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant titled "An Integrated Chemical and Microbial Platform for On-demand Food Production from Minimal Resources," we must have custom drivers manufactured for a large-scale plasma reactor that can fix nitrogen using only air, water, and electricity in order to supply fixed nitrogen products as a substrate for the bioprocess to fulfill the ultimate goal of making food from only air, water, and electricity. The custom drivers that we need manufactured are required in order to scale up the reactor to meet targets specified by the sponsor.