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/(m3d), 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.