Mobile Recycled Asphalt Plant for On-Site Recovery of Dilapidated Airfields

necoTECH is developing a Mobile Recycled Asphalt Plant technology to recover dilapidated airfields. This technology will enable the reconstruction of airfields in austere and island environments without millions of dollars in raw material and shipping costs. This deployable solution provides cost savings, is far nimbler, and is much more sustainable. This solution can also be used on bases in CONUS operations to help meet sustainability goals. necoTECH has a truly novel way to produce hot mix asphalt (HMA), not simply a modified standard HMA plant. This implies much more technological risk, however, more than a decade of work has gone into de-risking this technology with the pilot facility (right). This plant creates 100-percent reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) for the commercial market while the national average is 21 percent. The plantÆs extremely energy-efficient heating system is a patented design that heats only the HMA being produced. Conventional HMA drum mix plants require the heating of a huge airstream, which is passed through the mixing drum to heat the aggregate before being discharged into the atmosphere. In contrast, our approach produces HMA in an excess-oxygen-free environment, eliminating the typical ōblue smokeö and eliminating the need for a bag house. It utilizes recycled rubber as the binder, removing the need for a heated liquid asphalt cement (AC) storage tank, resulting in a smaller physical and emissions footprint. A typical HMA plant maintains significant AC amounts at or above 300░F twenty-four hours a day, requiring large amounts of energy and constantly releasing emissions. This system is being developed through close collaboration with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) and the Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC). These partnerships ensure that the technology will meet defense standards for roadways, runways, and auxiliary airfield pavements. Our relationship with Ohio Wesleyan University provides access to soil experts to handle the organic components of dilapidated pavement. Our continued R&D focuses on tear-down, transport, and setup limitations for mobilization between bases, alterations/modifications to improve transportability, and testing of dilapidated airfield materials.