The use of plants for bioregenerative life support will require consumable supplies of plant fertilizer. One way to reduce the consumable need to recycle nutrients that are bound in the inedible biomass (e.g., leaves, stems, etc.) of harvested plants. The project will treat inedible plant biomass in bioreactors to retrieve soluble nutrients, and then treat the recalcitrant biomass with acid to recover less soluble nutrients from the waste (e.g., Ca, Mg, PO4).
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