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Potable and hygiene water availability is a critical requirement for long-duration manned space missions. Frequent water quality testing helps to ensure astronaut health by providing needed feedback on the effectiveness of on-board water purification units. One of the most basic and broad-spectrum indicators of contamination is organic carbon concentration. To meet the need for water quality feedback on the International Space Station (ISS), as well as on planned missions to Luna and Mars, Lynntech is developing a mesofluidic total organic carbon analyzer (TOCA) through the NASA SBIR program. The unit has been designed to operate in the demanding environment of a long-duration manned space mission and addresses the issues of microgravity operation, an operating lifetime of 5 years, low power consumption, simple user interface, robust architecture, and inherent safety.

Water is the single largest resource required for crew sustenance during long-term human space missions. To preserve this resource, water must be reclaimed from waste streams containing minimum concentrations of organic and inorganic impurities. The removal of dissolved ions from waste water is essential to regenerative water reclamation technology for life support systems. The aim of this project was to demonstrate a novel electrochemically driven purification method using tubulated bipolar ion exchange membranes for the separation of dissolved ionic impurities from spacecraft waste water. Generally, electrochemical separation methods have limited applications since they can only be applied to the purification of the water that has a sufficiently high dissolved ion content to make the solution conductive. The new method, however, uses a membrane composed of bilayers of oppositely charged ionically conducting polymers.

The post-treatment purification of water recovered from hygiene, metabolic and humidity condensate waste water is essential to regenerative water reclamation technology life support systems. Lynntech, Inc., working with NASA-JSC has developed an electrochemical reactor that generates ozone and hydrogen peroxide. The electrochemical reactor is the basis for an advanced oxidation process in which electrochemically generated oxidants are used in combination with ultraviolet irradiation to produce hydroxyl radicals in a reclaimed water stream which in turn oxidize dissolved organic impurities to carbon dioxide. This paper describes the design and fabrication of an automated breadboard reactor system based on this principle. The system operates at low temperature and requires no chemical expendables. Kinetics and performance test results are presented showing the removal of organic impurities and disinfection features to produce potable water quality.

The purification of reclaimed water is essential to water reclamation technology life-support systems in lunar/Mars habitats. Lynntech, Inc., working with NASA-JSC, is developing an electrochemical UV reactor which generates oxidants, operates at low temperatures and requires no chemical expendables. The reactor is the basis for an advanced oxidation process, in which electrochemically generated ozone and hydrogen peroxide are used, in combination with ultraviolet light irradiation, to produce hydroxyl radicals. Results from this process are presented which demonstrate concept feasibility for removal of organic impurities and disinfection of water for potable and hygiene reuse. Power, size requirements, Faradaic efficiency and process reaction kinetics are discussed. At the completion of this development effort, the reactor system will be installed in JSC's regenerative water recovery test facility for evaluation to compare this technique with other candidate processes.

The recovery of resources for reuse from the processing of diverse waste materials produced by a crew in space-based closed life support systems is essential for the success of long duration space missions. Lynntech, Inc. is investigating and developing a waste processor that uses thermal solubilization and wet oxidation at elevated pressure and an electrochemical process for solid waste processing for closed life support systems. The electrochemical process uses a packed bed anode that oxidizes waste at temperatures <100°C and operates at atmospheric pressure. This approach offers an alternative to high temperature thermal processes for solid waste treatment. Incorporated into the packed bed reactor design is a method that shows potential for regenerating a liquid electrolyte enabling the electrochemical process to operate for long periods without having to be replaced.