Testing of an Enhanced Brine Dewatering System

Water recovery is essential for long-duration space exploration transit and outpost missions. Primary stage wastewater recovery systems partially satisfy this need, and generate concentrated wastewater brines that are unusable without further processing. The Enhanced Brine Dewatering System (EBDS) is being developed to allow nearly complete recovery of water from wastewater brines. This paper describes the operation of the EBDS and discusses the development and testing of two EBDS full system prototypes. The alpha prototype was used to process ersatz solutions that represent the anticipated wastewater stream from a primary stage water processor, and to evaluate the effects of different additives that are mixed with the brine to improve the ability of the EBDS to generate a removable solid residue. In addition to processing ersatz formulations, the alpha prototype processed authentic brines generated by the Cascade Distillation System (CDS) with a wastewater stream made up of actual treated urine, hygiene water, and condensate water. The chemical and microbial composition of the EBDS influent solutions, dried solid residue, and condensed effluent were evaluated. The beta prototype was tested with a wastewater brine ersatz to evaluate system performance, including power requirements. The performance test results were used to evaluate the equivalent system mass of flight-like EBDS designs for a number of reference missions.