Browsing by Author "Klopotic, Joe"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Design & Testing of a Catalytic Oxidizer for Cleaning of Hazardous Compounds in the Trash Compaction & Processing System (TCPS) Effluent Gas
    (2024 International Conference on Environmnetal Systems, 2024-07-21) Klopotic, Joe; Shakouri, Nate ; Petrie, Zachary ; Coleman, Brynne; Wetzel, John ; Moffatt, Sam ;
    The Trash Compaction & Processing System (TCPS) being developed for long duration space missions compresses, safens, and dries crew-generated standard trash, recovers and recycles water, and manages gaseous effluent produced during trash processing. As the trash is processed at elevated temperatures, it emits gaseous effluent containing Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and other complex gaseous contaminants which evolve from the trash load. To conserve valuable resources during flight these gases are managed and recycled to reduce consumable losses. A Catalytic Oxidizer (CatOx) was developed by Sierra Space to treat this contaminated gas and render it safe for reintroduction into the cabin environment. VOCs are catalytically decomposed at high temperatures using a specially synthesized proprietary catalyst. Resulting gas outflows can be safely released into the cabin atmosphere, or through other downstream systems. The TCPS CatOx is functional at diverse pressure ranges and can be readily adopted for other trace contaminant control applications in spaceflight. Testing using representative contaminants was conducted to characterize and quantify the performance of the CatOx in support of the TCPS flight hardware development, with discussion of performance measures including destruction efficiency, thermal performance, and suitability for integration with other life-support systems.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Heat Melt Compactor Test Unit
    (48th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2018-07-08) Wetzel, John; Surdyk, Robert; Klopotic, Joe; Rangan, Kris
    The Heat Melt Compactor (HMC) is a logistical waste management system designed to process trash in support of human operations in space. Processing includes compressing the waste into a manageable tile and recovering water from the waste. Previous developmental systems have been built to demonstrate and evaluate the effectiveness of this HMC waste compaction and water recovery technique. The HMC Test Unit leverages the design from these previous models to assemble a streamlined version that will be used to evaluate implementation of permeable bags to encase the trash during compaction. The HMC Test Unit design focuses on compaction of the trash and recovery of water using heat, partial vacuum, and compression. The unit is sized to accommodate an 11.5-inch square tile, somewhat larger than the 9-inch square tiles processed using the NASA Ames second generation HMC (GEN2) and smaller than the 16-inch square tiles processed using the SNC/ORBITEC Plastic Melt Waste Compactor (PMWC). Following design, fabrication, and checkout, the unit will be delivered for testing the application of permeable bags.