Characterizing Cryogenic Carbon Dioxide Capture for Life Support Systems

Date

2017-07-16

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

47th International Conference on Environmental Systems

Abstract

Without a vastly improved cabin air CO2 removal system technology, deep space missions will not be plausible. The carbon dioxide removal assembly (CDRA) on ISS has repeated replacement and maintenance costs due to adsorbent material degradation. A current effort to evaluate CO2 removal systems to succeed CDRA is underway. Alternative adsorption and thermal amine technologies are included. Cryogenic capture of CO2 in a cabin atmosphere is a newly-explored solution. Cryogenics are highly reliable, self-sufficient systems with great potential in this area of study. The added benefit of a cryogenic system is that it can provide humidity and trace contaminant control in addition to CO2 capture. Whereas cryogenic cooling technologies are established and Mars atmosphere CO2 capture has been tested, little research has been done on the application of cryogenic cooling to life support CO2 capture. This paper describes the design, build and initial functional testing of a lab-scale cryogenic system to remove CO2 from simulated cabin air. The system is ready to test both CO2/N2 mixed and dry CO2-loaded air, and production rate, cycle time, and power requirements will be characterized so that future flight-like system requirements may be better modeled.

Description

Grace Belancik, NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), USA
Darrell Jan, NASA Ames Research Center, USA
Roger Huang, Wyle Labs, NASA Ames Research Center, USA
Jordi Paredes-Garcia, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA
Joe Chambliss, NASA Johnson Space Center, USA
ICES302: Physio-chemical Life Support- Air Revitalization Systems -Technology and Process Development
The 47th International Conference on Environmental Systems was held in South Carolina, USA on 16 July 2017 through 20 July 2017

Keywords

CO2 Removal, Cryogenic Cooling, Air Revitalization, Life Support

Citation