Integrated evaluation of a sequential membrane filtration system for recovery of bioreactor effluent during long space missions

Reverse osmosis processing of organic model compounds and fermentation broths

“…RO performance tests were also conducted using an actual fermentation broth obtained from an on-site, bench-scale biohydrogen production reactor system. Similar technical approaches have recently been validated for aerobic bioconversion of wastewater followed by RO treatment step for water recycling in electronic industry (Chen and Chen, 2004), meat processing industry (Bohdziewicz and Sroka, 2005), and long duration space missions (Tansel et al, 2005). Results reported in this paper would be a useful addition to this newly proposed resource recovery tool involving bioconversion/RO reclamation.…”

“…NASA has shown great interest in and has considered the RO technology as one of the key elements in its Water Recovery and Management System (WRMS) for long-duration space missions. Tansel et al (2005) evaluated the feasibility of the sequential membrane filtration approach for treatment of the effluent from an aerated rotating membrane bioreactor system (ARMS), and reported that both the solids removal and flux of the RO membrane were significantly affected by the effluent quality from the prefilter.…”

Deposition of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and microtopographical changes on membrane surfaces during intermittent filtration conditions

“…The rotating hollow fiber membrane module provides mixing to maintain high mass transfer rates between the bulk liquid and the biofilm resulting into high bioconversion rates which reduce the volume requirements [20,21]. The design and operational details of the ARMS is provided by Rector et al [21,22]. The 12-L bioreactor is operated in continuous mode with simulated wastewater representing the output of 1/2 person crew during space missions.…”

“…Previous experimental studies have shown that microfiltration did not provide significant quality improvement since the substrates in the effluent were in dissolved form. However, experiments with nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membranes showed significantly improved water quality [22].…”

Coupling of physico-chemical treatment and steel membrane filtration to enhanced organic removal in wastewater treatment

“…Both of these processes have some advantages and disadvantages. For example, energy consumption in cross-flow mode is higher than dead-end mode [13], while solid removal efficiency in cross-flow mode is higher than dead-end mode [14]. Ceramic membranes are becoming popular over organic membranes due to durability, tolerance of higher temperature and ease of backwash.…”