Status of ISS Water Management and Recovery

Carter, Donald L.; Tobias, Barry; Orozco, Nicole

doi:10.2514/6.2013-3509

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…The ISS urine wastewater was chemically stabilized and then distilled by vapor compression distillation (VCD) process, which was restricted to the solubility limit of various compounds inside [3]. During this process, about 15% of the total volume of this stream would remain as urine brine, which could not be further concentrated by distillation [4]. NH 4 + -N was hard to be chemically converted under mild conditions; therefore, the stream was chemically stabilized with strong acids and oxidants to prevent the evaporation of NH 3 with water vapor.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green and Sustainable Treatment of Urine Wastewater with a Membrane-Aerated Biofilm Reactor for Space Applications

Zhan

Zhang

et al. 2022

Water

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Sustainability has been a concern of survival for future long-term manned space missions. Therefore, the wastewater generated by the crew members, containing urine and hygiene wastewater, should be treated with appropriate biological processes to promote recycling efficiency. In this study, we developed a membrane-aerated biofilm reactor (MABR) that could achieve up to 96% total organic carbon (TOC) removal efficiency and up to 82% denitrification efficiency for an influent with 370–390 mg/L TOC and 500–600 mg/L total nitrogen (TN) without additional carbon source or sludge discharge. The nitrogen removal rate was about 100 mg N L−1 d−1. Metagenomic analysis indicated the presence of a variety of nitrifying, denitrifying, and anammox bacteria in the microbial community and existence of functional genes in nitrification, denitrification, and anammox pathways.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green and Sustainable Treatment of Urine Wastewater with a Membrane-Aerated Biofilm Reactor for Space Applications

Zhan

Zhang

et al. 2022

Water

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“…A reserve of potable water (up to approx. 2000 L) is stored in contingency containers to maintain ISS operations in response to emergency scenarios (Carter et al, 2018). Although routinely monitored and kept constant, the overall water mass balance represents a recurrent major challenge owing to the various ISS water needs.…”

Section: The Iss Water Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the US segment, the Water Recovery and Management System was reported to recuperate up to 85% from crew urine and flush water, along with the water content from liquid wastes and humidity condensate from the cabin. Various containers, reservoirs, tanks and bellows are also necessary to maintain water pressure and circulation through the distribution network (Carter et al, 2018).…”

Section: The Iss Water Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Molecular iodine is applied in the U.S. segment, while the ionic silver level is amended in Russian waters, both at low concentrations (i.e., not detrimental for human health) (Artemyeva, 2016;Lobascio et al, 2004). Moreover, high temperature in the catalytic reactor, multifiltration beds within the Water Processor Assembly, UV-C LEDs within the CO2 Concentration Assembly of the Advanced Closed Loop System, and novel antimicrobial coatings on various ISS surfaces were proved effective against potential microbial biomass growth (Bockstahler et al, 2017;Carter et al, 2018;Perrin et al, 2018;Roman et al, 2006;Sobisch et al, 2019). Finally, the 6 ISS is maintained at pressure and oxygen levels very close to those at sea level on Earth, with a cabin temperature of about 22°C and a relative humidity of about 60%, in order to minimize detrimental growth of microbial biofilms on cabin surfaces (Pierson et al, 2013).…”

Section: The Iss Water Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

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Water and Microbial Monitoring Technologies towards the Near Future Space Exploration

Amalfitano¹,

Levantesi²,

Copetti³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Space exploration is demanding longer lasting human missions and water resupply from Earth will become increasingly unrealistic. In a near future, the spacecraft water monitoring systems will require technological advances to promptly identify and counteract contingent events of waterborne microbial contamination, posing health risks to astronauts with lowered immune responsiveness. The search for bio-analytical approaches, alternative to those applied on Earth by cultivation-dependent methods, is pushed by the compelling need to limit waste disposal and avoid microbial regrowth from analytical carryovers. Prospective technologies will be selected only if first validated in a flight-like environment, by following basic principles, advantages, and limitations beyond their current applications on Earth. Starting from the water monitoring activities applied on the International Space Station, we provide a critical overview of the nucleic acid amplification-based approaches (i.e., loop-mediated isothermal amplification, quantitative PCR, and high-throughput sequencing) and early-warning methods for total microbial load assessments (i.e., ATP-metry, flow cytometry), already used at a high readiness level aboard crewed space vehicles. Our findings suggest that the forthcoming space applications of mature technologies will be necessarily bounded by a compromise between analytical performances (e.g., speed to results, identification depth, reproducibility, multiparametricity) and detrimental technical requirements (e.g., reagent usage, waste production, operator skills, crew time). As space exploration progresses toward extended missions to Moon and Mars, miniaturized systems that also minimize crew involvement in their end-to-end operation are likely applicable on the long-term and suitable for the in-flight water and microbiological research.

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“…Microbial activity onboard has been known to cause issues in essential systems such as biofouling in water lines due to issues in original design that has since been rectified. 22 In addition, capture of bacterial-and fungal-related airborne particles is a major function of the ISS air filtration system. 23 Increased levels of relative humidity facilitate rapid microbial growth, especially for fungi.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting how varying moisture conditions impact the microbiome of dust collected from the International Space Station

Nastasi,

Bope,

Meyer

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Background The commercialization of space travel will soon lead to many more people living and working in unique built environments similar to the International Space Station, which is a specialized closed environment that contains its own indoor microbiome. Unintended microbial growth can occur in this environment as in building on Earth from elevated moisture, such as from a temporary ventilation system failure. This growth can drive negative health outcomes and degrade building materials. We need a predictive approach for modeling microbial growth in these critical indoor spaces. Results Here we demonstrate that even short exposures to varying elevated relative humidity can facilitate rapid microbial growth and microbial community composition changes in dust from spacecraft. We modeled fungal growth in dust from the International Space Station using the time-of-wetness framework with activation and deactivation limited growth occurring at 85% and 100% relative humidity, respectively. Fungal concentrations ranged from an average of 4.4 x 106 spore equivalents per mg dust in original dust with no exposure to relative humidity to up to 2.1 x 1010 when exposed to 100% relative humidity for 2-weeks. As relative humidity and time elevated increased, fungal diversity was significantly reduced for both alpha (Q < 0.05) and beta (R2 = 0.307, P = 0.001) diversity metrics. Bacteria were unable to be modeled using the time-of-wetness framework. However, bacterial communities did changes based on constant relative humidity incubations for both beta (R2 = 0.22, P = 0.001) and alpha diversity decreasing with increasing moisture starting at 85% relative humidity (Q < 0.05). Conclusion Our results demonstrate moisture conditions can be used to develop predict changes in fungal growth and composition onboard human-occupied spacecraft. This predictive model can be expanded upon to include other spacecraft environmental factors such as microgravity, elevated carbon dioxide conditions, and radiation exposure. Understanding microbial growth in spacecraft can help better protect astronaut health, fortify spacecraft integrity, and promote planetary protection as human activity increases in low-Earth orbit, the moon, Mars, and beyond.

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Status of ISS Water Management and Recovery

Cited by 18 publications

References 5 publications

Green and Sustainable Treatment of Urine Wastewater with a Membrane-Aerated Biofilm Reactor for Space Applications

Green and Sustainable Treatment of Urine Wastewater with a Membrane-Aerated Biofilm Reactor for Space Applications

Water and Microbial Monitoring Technologies towards the Near Future Space Exploration

Predicting how varying moisture conditions impact the microbiome of dust collected from the International Space Station

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