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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.