Next Generation Water Recovery for a Sustainable Closed Loop Living

Among numerous technological advances sought in order to facilitate human space travel, innovations are needed that supports the mass- and energy-efficient maintenance of closed air, water, and waste systems in spacecraft habitats that operate on planetary environments such as Mars and within microgravity. Waste-water treatment system on board the ISS is one such system that has lifetime/durability limitations and would benefit from improvements. Therefore, in this Phase II STTR program Faraday will continue the technology development efforts of the Phase I by: (1) leveraging existing knowledge in the combined expertise of Faraday and UPR for device design and testing under zero gravity conditions; (2) exploring the bacteria for urea bioreactor and electrocatalyst for ammonia reactor tailored for zero gravity conditions of our subcontractor UPR, (3) optimizing the electrocatalytic efficiency and waste water treatment rate with on-board water simulates, (4) validating performance under zero gravity conditions; and (5) designing and building a demonstration-scale bio-electrochemical reactor unit capable of meeting NASA required specifications . This evaluation will enable TRL enhancement and demonstrate a potential path forward for Phase II scale-up and assessment of the bio-electrochemical system in zero-gravity environments. This technology has the potential to be an integral part of long term life support on NASA’s manned space missions.