SBIR-STTR Award

Military deployable laundry systems consume large amounts of water cleaning soldier uniforms, under wear, and towels. The objective of this effort is to develop an innovative, low water consumption or waterless laundry system that exhibits military hardening, conforms to existing transport and logistics requirements, and ensures military personnel can service the equipment. A low flow or waterless laundry system will allow for laundry functions at more austere locations currently constrained by limited water and fuel resupply. This in turn will increase the morale, welfare and hygiene for soldiers deployed at remote basecamps, increasing overall mission readiness and effectiveness of our Army

In this effort Technical Products Inc. (TPI) will develop a High Efficiency Laundry System (HEELS) with reduced water, power, and waste support requirements and minimal transportation and logistics footprint whilst still enhancing the soldiers quality of life.TPIs HEELS system concept:can use almost any local water as an input (that is, it does need potable or even clean non-potable water as a resource)minimizes water usage by purifying and recycling the clothes washer waterminimizes water usage by using the concentrate from the Reverse Osmosis (RO) water purification sub-system for the clothes washer 1st wash cycleeffectively uses only 0.2-gal of water/lb of clothes (an 85% reduction)requires 0.1-kWhr/lb of clothes of grid electrical power (a 70% reduction)The objectives in Phase II are to:finalize selection of subsystems and componentscomplete the systems engineering of the HEELS prototypeintegrate the system into a multi-modal shipping system of a TRICON container with environmentally managed user spacestest and evaluate the prototype against system performance objectivesderive a realistic commercialization plan and complete a teaming agreement with an appropriate partner