The water treatment and recycling in 105-day bioregenerative life support experiment in the Lunar Palace 1

Abstract In the bioregenerative life support system (BLSS), water recycling is one of the essential issues. The Lunar Palace 1, a ground-based bioregenerative life support system experimental facility, has been developed by our team and a 105-day closed bioregenerative life support experiment with multi-crew involved has been accomplished within this large-scale facility. During the 105-day experiment, activated carbon-absorption/ultra-filtration, membrane-biological activated carbon reactor and reduced pressure distillation technology have been used to purify the condensate water, sanitary & kitchen wastewater and urine, respectively. The results demonstrated that the combination of those technologies can achieve 100% regeneration of the water inside the Lunar Palace 1. The purified condensate water (the clean water) could meet the standards for drinking water quality in China (GB5749-2006). The treatment capacity of the membrane-biological activated carbon reactor for sanitary & kitchen wastewater could reach 150 kg/d. During the 105-d experiment, the average volume loading of the bioreactor was 0.441 kgCOD/(m 3 d), and the average COD removal efficiency was about 85.3%. The quality of the purified sanitary & kitchen wastewater (the greywater) could meet the standards for irrigation water quality (GB 5084–2005). In addition, during the 105-day experiment, the total excreted urine volume of three crew members was 346 L and the contained water was totally treated and recovered. The removal efficiency of ion from urine was about 88.12%. Moreover, partial nitrogen within the urine was recovered as well and the average recovery ratio was about 20.5%. The study laid a foundation for the water recycling technologies which could be used in BLSS for lunar or Mars bases.

[1]  F B Salisbury,et al.  Bios-3: Siberian experiments in bioregenerative life support. , 1997, Bioscience.

[2]  K. Reardon,et al.  A bioreactor system for the nitrogen loop in a Controlled Ecological Life Support System. , 1996, Advances in space research : the official journal of the Committee on Space Research.

[4]  Robert M. Bagdigian,et al.  Upgrades to the ISS Water Recovery System , 2015 .

[5]  Iosef I. Gitelson,et al.  Creation of Closed Ecological Life Support Systems: Results, Critical Problems and Potentials , 2008 .

[6]  Guanghui Liu,et al.  How to Establish a Bioregenerative Life Support System for Long-Term Crewed Missions to the Moon or Mars. , 2016, Astrobiology.

[7]  Jeremy Walker,et al.  MELiSSA the minimal biosphere: Human life, waste and refuge in deep space , 2017 .

[8]  Raymond M. Wheeler,et al.  Use of Bioregenerative Technologies for Advanced Life Support: Some Considerations for BIO-Plex and Related Testbeds , 1997 .

[9]  K Nitta,et al.  The CEEF, closed ecosystem as a laboratory for determining the dynamics of radioactive isotopes. , 2001, Advances in space research : the official journal of the Committee on Space Research.

[11]  K Nitta,et al.  Integration test project of CEEF--a test bed for Closed Ecological Life Support Systems. , 2000, Advances in space research : the official journal of the Committee on Space Research.

[12]  Dawei Hu,et al.  Controller development of photo bioreactor for closed-loop regulation of O2 production based on ANN model reference control and computer simulation , 2013 .

[13]  Rui Zhou,et al.  Design and optimization of photo bioreactor for O2 regulation and control by system dynamics and computer simulation. , 2012, Bioresource technology.

[14]  G. Colón,et al.  Sodium chloride removal from urine via a six-compartment ED cell for use in Advanced Life Support Systems (Part 1: salt removal as a function of applied voltage and fluid velocity) , 2001 .

[15]  M. Leow,et al.  Postprandial changes in cardiometabolic disease risk in young Chinese men following isocaloric high or low protein diets, stratified by either high or low meal frequency - a randomized controlled crossover trial , 2015, Nutrition Journal.

[16]  S. Bartsev,et al.  Conceptual design of a bioregenerative life support system containing crops and silkworms , 2010 .

[17]  Michael Flynn,et al.  Membrane contactor processes for wastewater reclamation in space Part I. Direct osmotic concentration as pretreatment for reverse osmosis , 2005 .

[18]  Hong Liu,et al.  Growth characteristics comparison of lettuce and silkworms in and out of the multibiological life support system , 2012 .

[19]  V. M. Novikov,et al.  A Physical/Chemical System for Water and Atmosphere Recovery Aboard a Space Station , 1993 .

[20]  Ming Li,et al.  Gas exchange between humans and multibiological life support system , 2011 .

[21]  Jay L. Garland,et al.  Cleansing Agents for Human Hygiene in Space Travel: Considerations for Biological Processing of Wastewater , 2002 .

[22]  Beizhen Xie,et al.  The recycle of water and nitrogen from urine in bioregenerative life support system , 2016 .

[23]  A. E. Greenberg,et al.  Standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater : supplement to the sixteenth edition , 1988 .

[24]  Dawei Hu,et al.  Construction of closed integrative system for gases robust stabilization employing microalgae peculiarity and computer experiment , 2012 .