Treatment of an Early Planetary Base Wastestream in a Rotating Hollow Fiber Membrane Reactor

The Advance Life Support (ALS) community has intensively researched bioreactors utilizing membrane dissolution technology for bioregenerative water recovery applications. The inherent benefits of bubble less oxygen transfer make them attractive for microgravity environments. A novel membrane reactor currently operating at Kennedy Space Center is being used to evaluate the nitrification efficiency of an early planetary base (ESB) wastestream. The Aerobic Rotational Membrane System (ARMS) utilizes membrane rotation to facilitate increased mass transfer and turbulent flow to optimize nitrification. Investigations have shown that operation under this flow regime plays an important role in both treatment efficiency and also bacterial spatial gradients. A wide range of rotational frequencies has been used during operation of the ARMS. The initial results indicate that increasing rotational frequency corresponds in increasing nitrification. In addition (RTD) tracer analyses verified that turbulent flow exists in the ARMS. It was also found that membrane module packing porosity becomes independent of rotational frequency in the ARMS at frequencies greater then 15 RPM. This paper summarizes the preliminary results of treatment efficiency and hydrodynamic characterization.