The technologies for recycling plastic waste already exist, but they are not available in a form that is suitable for expeditionary deployment. Geofabrica therefore proposes to adapt existing recycling technology to achieve the mobility and robustness needed to be deployed at FOBs and to enable operation with limited power and water with little burden to the Warfighter. In Phase I, Geofabrica proposes to build and test a simple sortation prototype. Sortation is key to the Mobile Recycling Facility (MRF-X) success as, once an adequately pure fraction of plastic material has been recovered, it is relatively straightforward to extrude 3D printing filament. Geofabrica will also create a high-level design framework to address the strategies central to target material recovery, energy minimization, resource consumption, robustness and mobility that are essential to an expeditionary capability. Phase I will validate Geofabricas MRF-X strategy and will provide 1) a foundation for assessing the viability of Phase II, 2) a framework for planning the Phase II development of an MRF-X end-to-end prototype, and 3) a basis for developing the MRF-X commercialization plan.
Benefit: Supply logistics are fundamental to effective forward deployment. Supply affects the agility, capability and safety of our Warfighters and is a significant element of the defense budget. To maintain operational superiority, the U.S. Marine Corps is introducing 3D printed, point-of-need fabrication of plastic parts; quickly putting provisional parts in the hands of the Warfighter while also reducing demands on supply shipment. This SBIR supports this initiative by creating a system the Mobile Recycling Facility (MRF-X) to produce 3D printing filament from plastic waste and scrap material generated at Forward Operating Bases (FOBs).
Keywords: Recycling, Recycling, Forward Operating Base, plastics, expeditionary, point of need, MRF-X,, Supply, 3D printing
