NASA’s latest gizmo, The Forward Osmosis Bag (FOB) recycles astronaut pee into drinkable water and is now up and running on the last ever Shuttle flight by Atlantis. One of the four astronauts will be trying it out at the end of the mission, but won’t be filtering pee, rather a trial fluid.
The osmotic bag inside NASA's book-sized recycler is based on a soldier’s portable filter system that removes parasites, bacteria, viruses, and contaminants from dirty fluids and urine. The space related modifications were implemented by Bionetics Corporation.
According to NASA project leader Howard Levine, "This could be a first step toward recapturing the humidity from our sweat, from our breath, even from our urine, and recycling it and making it drinkable", and an ultimate objective of also recycling exhaled breath moisture and perspiration.
The International Space Station already recycles onboard pee, but it uses station electrical power, while this version uses no electrical power, relying on forward osmosis instead.
A sugary solution sits inside a semi-permeable inner bag. The outer bag is filled with contaminated fluid. Over time, the contaminated fluid passes through the semi-permeable inner bag and mixes with the sugary solution. The double-sack system makes a liter of drinkable fluid in four to six hours. No news yet on how much the space version will actually make, and zero gravity might make a difference to the fluid and osmotic process.
In the images, the blue fluid is a potassium-rich test solution and if you want to have one to try for yourself, for camping, emergency kits, and disaster relief. A six-pack of bags that can each produce 12 ounces of drinking water from any liquid cost about US$23 (€16).
It would be nice if they could make a personalized flavour one, like strawberry, kiwi, orange or perhaps something a little stronger like Earl Grey Tea. On a more serious note, if they could build this system into a suit it would be great as a survival system or it may even be needed in the not-so-distant future when water resources become more scarce,….but frankly I’d rather drink my own pee than someone else’s!
Visit: NASA
Trevor Williams is a University of Victoria Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate specializing in renewable energy, power grid modeling and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. He has a bachelors in Aeronautical Engineering, a Masters in Management Science and over 23 years international experience in the space industry, having worked on Earth observation and telecommunications satellites. He is the author of the Eco-Geek blog.
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written by Alkaline Water Filter , September 28, 2011