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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.

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.

In bioregenerative life support systems, crop residues represent a source of biochemical energy for production of chemicals, pulp products and secondary foods. Hydrolysis of the structural carbohydrates in biomass produces edible glucose as well as various 5-carbon sugars usable by microorganisms. However, the biomass must be pretreated before hydrolysis to remove minerals useful as plant nutrients, break down lignin, and improve access of the enzymes to the carbohydrates. Some pre-treatments also hydrolyze part or all of the hemicellulose, leaving purified cellulose. For use in space, pretreatments must be safe, rapid and as complete as practicable. This paper will present a process comparison of three “space-compatible” pretreatment methods for lignocellu-losic crop residues from bioregenerative life support systems. Ozonation, alkaline hydrogen peroxide, and strong alkali treatment use only regenerable materials and mild processing conditions.