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Water recovery is essential for long-duration space exploration transit and outpost missions. Primary stage wastewater recovery systems partially satisfy this need, and generate concentrated wastewater brines that are unusable without further processing. The Enhanced Brine Dewatering System (EBDS) is being developed to allow nearly complete recovery of water from Lunar Outpost wastewater brines. This paper describes the operation of the EBDS and discusses the development and testing of the major functional materials, components, and subsystems, including the wastewater brine ersatz formulations that are used in subsystem testing. The assembly progress of the EBDS full system prototype is also discussed, as well as plans for testing the prototype hardware.

A modular and scalable Dense Medium Plasma Water Purification Reactor was developed, which uses atmospheric-pressure electrical discharges under water to generate highly reactive species to break down organic contaminants and microorganisms. Key benefits of this novel technology include: (i) extremely high efficiency in both decontamination and disinfection; (ii) operating continuously at ambient temperature and pressure; (iii) reducing demands on the containment vessel; and (iv) requiring no consumables. This plasma based technology was developed to replace the catalytic reactor being used in the planned International Space Station Water Processor Assembly.