WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE — The Air Force is opening a center for its ongoing research efforts to develop alternative jet fuels that can help lower the service’s more than $6 billion annual aircraft fuel bill and reduce dependence on foreign sources of oil.

The $2.5 million building, home to equipment valued at an additional $2.5 million, will house scientists from the Air Force, University of Dayton Research Institute and Battelle Memorial Institute who are testing blends of traditional JP-8 aircraft fuel and synthetic fuels to determine whether they can reliably power Air Force planes.

The Air Force Research Laboratory has provided a $10 million grant in support of the fuels research. AFRL officials are leading a formal ceremony at 10 a.m. today in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base’s Area B to dedicate the new building. It is near the building that the fuel researchers have been using in recent years.

It houses a facility intended to boost the research effort by producing up to 15 to 20 gallons a day of synthetic fuels for testing. Rhecors General Contractors, of Dayton, was the project contractor.

The researchers are working with fuels blended with synfuels derived from coal, algae or biomass sources such as switchgrasses, wood waste, municipal waste or solid materials left over after seed pressing.

The Air Force has tested and certified biofuel as a 50-50 blend with regular jet fuel in combat and transport planes including the A-10 Thunderbolt II, F-15 Eagle, C-17 Globemaster III and F-22 Raptor. During the weekend, the Air Force Thunderbirds flight demonstration team flew runs at the Joint Services Open House event at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., using jet fuel blended with synthetic fuel from camelina, a common plant grown since ancient times for its oil that has been used for lamp fuel and ointments.

The Air Force consumes about 2.5 billion gallons of jet fuel annually, accounting for about 10 percent of the U.S. market and roughly equivalent to the consumption of a large airline, said Tim Edwards, a senior scientist in the fuels branch of the AFRL’s propulsion directorate.