A Low Power, Solid State, Method of Oxygen Supply
Project Description
The key innovation of the work prior to the start of this project is the planar monolith - allowing for solid state oxygen production at pressures up to 300 psig. The key innovation of this proposed work is a new method of cell stack thermal management - with the key objective of reducing power use by more than 50% compared to current SOA. This thermal management approach is entirely new - it has not been used by any NASA, Industry, or academic project for oxygen separation. After the first year's work to develop and demonstrate a TRL 4 engineering prototype, next step is to develop and manufacture a fully packaged and integrated system suitable for flight demonstration on ISS.
More »Anticipated Benefits
Ceramic Transport Membranes can produce oxygen from air at high purity, at high pressure, using solid state processes. CTMs are not in widespread use because 1) the technology is new, and 2) in its current state it uses more power than other approaches. This project intends to replace the single-pass process air loop with a recirculating process air loop. The innovation: uncoupling fresh air intake from convective temperature control. The achievement: projected power use 1.4 Whr / liter of O2. The goal: to build and demonstrate a high purity (>99.99% O2) oxygen supply capable of providing suit recharge oxygen, contingency ECLS oxygen, or emergency medical oxygen - with power efficiency 63% better than the State of the Art, and unprecedented reliability that only solid state systems can achieve.
More »Primary U.S. Work Locations and Key Partners
| Organizations Performing Work | Role | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
Johnson Space Center
(JSC)
|
Lead Organization | NASA Center | Houston, Texas |
| Ceramic Membrane Science | Supporting Organization | Industry | |
| Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) | Supporting Organization | FFRDC/UARC | Pasadena, California |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | Supporting Organization | Academia | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Rice University | Supporting Organization | Academia | Houston, Texas |
Primary U.S. Work Locations
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California
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Massachusetts
-
Texas
