Assessment of Biocide Impacts on Life Support and Extravehicular Activity Architectures

Iodine has historically been used to minimize microbial growth in wetted portions of life support and Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) systems. Because of challenges with dormancy, the life support water processing team has baselined silver as a biocide for future Exploration missions, but continues to consider iodine, bromine, and chlorine as options. An assessment was conducted to identify and evaluate the trade space for implementation of various biocides in Lunar surface, Mars transit, and Martian surface vehicles. The team identified sixteen possible biocide sources for use in Exploration systems. An evaluation of the effects of each biocide on crew health, life support hardware, and xEMU hardware was conducted and resulted in eleven potential biocide architectures. Here we report the results of the architecture trade study and recommendations for future investigations.