Next Generation Water Recovery for a Sustainable Closed Loop Living
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Abstract
The Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) within the International Space Station (ISS) recovers and recycles up to 85% water from human waste with lifetime/durability limitations requiring the supply of hazardous chemicals and filter units to treat the system components to maintain their targeted performance. However, as human missions travel further into the solar system the availability of resources to resupply will be diminished. Therefore, next-generation system is required to reduce waste, recover water, and improve efficiency. Accordingly, Faraday Technology and the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) are developing a bio-electrochemical system to efficiently treat urine waste streams with ~95% urea to improve the water recovery system�s efficiency/durability. Within this system, a bioreactor will convert urea from the waste water to ammonia by hydrolysis: NH2(CO)NH2 + H2O ? 2NH3 + CO2 (1)
The effluent of the bioreactor will then flow through the ammonia oxidation reactor: 2NH3 ? N2 + 3H2 (2)
thus, generating urea free waste water effluent for further enhancement. Faraday and UPR have (1) leveraged existing knowledge to design and test the bio-electrochemical reactor; (2) explored the efficacy of (P. Vulgaris) bacteria for bioreactor, (3) evaluated electrocatalyst for ammonia reactor, (4) optimized the efficiency and waste water treatment rate with urine simulants. By doing so, the ammonia reactor demonstrated nearly 100% ammonia removal during optimized operation. The data from bench scale system was utilized to design and build a demonstration-scale bio-electrochemical reactor capable of meeting NASA specifications. A zero-gravity flight test is scheduled for May 2021 to validate the technology in microgravity. Furthermore, this technology has the potential to be compatible with the existing ECLSS infrastructure and be an integral part of the closed loop living systems required for long term life support on NASA�s manned space missions.
Acknowledgements: Financial support of NASA Contract NNX17CA30P and 80NSSC18C0222.
Description
Timothy Hall, Faraday Technology, Inc.
E. Jennings Taylor, Faraday Technology, Inc.
Danny Liu, Faraday Technology, Inc.
Stephen Snyder, Faraday Technology, Inc.
Carlos Cabrera, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras
Delmaliz Barreto Vazquez, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras
Wilfredo Cardona, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras
Arnulfo Rojas Perez, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras
ICES303: Physio-Chemical Life Support- Water Recovery & Management Systems- Technology and Process Development
The 50th International Conference on Environmental Systems was held virtually on 12 July 2021 through 14 July 2021.