Effect of Recycle Ratio on the Performance of Biological Water Recovery System

Biological pre-treatment of liquid waste could potentially offer equivalent mass savings for long term space habitation. Previous work has demonstrated the technological feasibility. However, limited work has been conducted on optimizing the biological reactors or fully characterizing the biochemical transformations occurring within the reactors. The objective of these studies was to provide long-term operating data on a proposed and well studied reactor configuration, and explore the effects of RR on system performance. The water recovery system has been in successful operation for over 2 years. Data to be presented will include both typical removal efficiencies for nitrogen species, DOC as well as important water quality parameters. In addition the effect of recycle ratio (2X, 5X, 10X, and 20X) will be quantified.