Water Walls: Highly Reliable and Massively Redundant Life Support Architecture

WATER WALLS (WW) takes an approach to providing a life support system, Forward Osmosis (FO), that is biologically and chemically passive, using mechanical systems only for plumbing to pump fluids such as gray water from the source to the point of processing.  Each cell of the WW system consists of a polyethylene bag or tank with one or more FO membranes to provide the chemical processing of waste.

WATER WALLS (WW) takes an approach to providing a life support system that is biologically and chemically passive, using mechanical systems only for plumbing to pump fluids such as gray water from the source to the point of processing. The core processing technology of Water Walls is FORWARD OSMOSIS (FO). Each cell of the WW system consists of a polyethylene bag or tank with one or more FO membranes to provide the chemical processing of waste. WW provides four principal functions of processing cells in four different types plus the common function of radiation shielding:  1. Gray water processing for urine and wash water, 2. Black water processing for solid waste, 3. Air processing for CO2 removal and O2 revitalization, 4. Food growth using green algae, and 5. Radiation protection to the crew habitat (all cells).