Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to B Borchers.
This article describes the design specification of the Vapor Phase Catalytic Ammonia Removal (VPCAR) process and the relative benefits of its utilization in a Mars Transit Vehicle application. The VPCAR process is a wastewater treatment technology that combines distillation with high-temperature catalytic oxidation of volatile impurities such as ammonia and organic compounds.
Life support technologies are being developed for long-duration space missions at NASA Ames Research Center as part of the Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS) Program. The primary goal of the CELSS Program is to develop small-scale ecological systems, a CELSS, that mimic ecological systems on Earth. This small-scale replica CELSS can provide all of the necessary life support functions and recycle nearly 100% of the waste products. A CELSS will use plants to purify air, clean water, and generate food for a human habitat. Human and plant waste products will be converted to useful products and reintroduced into the plant and human habitats for consumption. Both physical/chemical and biological waste-processing systems may be utilized to recycle waste materials. Recovering nitrogen from waste products is a major concern because nitrogen is an important nutrient for plants and humans. This article will outline plant selection requirements and waste-processing requirements, characterize waste streams, and discuss the potential physical/chemical waste processors used to process the wastes and the fate of nitrogen as a result of the process employed.
The NASA CELSS program has the goal of developing life support systems for humans in space based on the use of higher plants. The program has supported research at universities with a primary focus of increasing the productivity of candidate crop plants. To understand the effects of the space environment on plant productivity, the CELSS Test Facility (CTF) has been been conceived as an instrument that will permit the evaluation of plant productivity on Space Station Freedom. The CTF will maintain specific environmental conditions and collect data on gas exchange rates and biomass accumulation over the growth period of several crop plants grown sequentially from seed to harvest. The science requirements of the CTF will be described, as will current design concepts and specific technology requirements for operation in micro-gravity.