NASA /Army Forward Operating Base Gray Water Recycling System

This CRP Project is a joint NASA/Army activity to commercialize a NASA SBIR membrane separation technology. It will provide matching funds for a NASA Phase III SBIR contract that will provide a key component of a new water treatment technology that NASA is currently building for the Army. The Army is evaluating this technology for application as a Forward Operating Base (FOB) gray water recycling system. This CRP will specifically cover the procurement of the new NASA SBIR membrane technology that will be used as the key upgrade to the Army water recycling system. This research will benefit NASA specifically by providing long duration testing of this new membrane. This testing will ultimately include life testing which is very expensive for NASA to complete because it requires very long tests of 3 to 5 years. The cost to NASA of conducting such tests with human subjects generating the waste water would be prohibitive. The Army testing will also be used to define operating parameters that result in stable control, improved hardware performance, minimized power consumption, and improved operational reliability over the the long term. This project will also facilitate the commercialization of this membrane technology. This is important in that it will result in the establishment of a commercial base for this technology that NASA can look to for future procurements and improvements. This new membrane technology is based on a Biomemetic separation membrane that was recently developed by NASA through a 2013 SBIR with Porifera Inc. NASA testing has shown this technology to be a superior separation membrane. As a result, NASA has previously integrated this technology into the Space Technologies Mission Directorate (STMD) Next Generation Life Support (NGLS) Advanced Water Processor (AWP) through an earlier FY 14 Phase III SBIR between NASA and Porifera Inc. This earlier Phase III was funded entirely by STMD. This CRP proposal would partially (1/2) fund a second Phase III SBIR contract that would replace the existing membranes planned for use in the Army system with the new SBIR membranes. The Army system and the NASA AWP system are identical except that the Army system is over 20 times larger than the AWP system. Completing this upgrade would insure that the AWP and Army system were the same, would significantly improve the product water purity of the Army system, and would be a key step in the commercialization of this new membrane technology. More »