Pre- and Post-Treatment Techniques for Spacecraft Water Recovery

Waste water pretreatment and recovered water posttreatment techniques are essential for Space Station life support in order to achieve the necessary quality required of recycled water. This paper identifies methods of pre- and post-treatment applicable to spacecraft water recovery by distillation. The results of laboratory investigations show that oxidizers, which typically have been components of urine pretreatment formulas, produce many volatile organic compounds that contaminate the distillate and must later be removed by posttreatment. Two new nonoxidizing urine pretreatment formulas have been tested which minimize the generation of volatile organics and thereby significantly reduce posttreatment requirements. Three posttreatment methods were identified from among the many candidates that look promising (either alone or in combination) for removing organic contaminants in recovered water to nondetectable or barely detectable levels. Results of investigations are presented in this paper.