Development Status of the Carbon Dioxide and Moisture Removal Amine Swing-bed (CAMRAS)

Under a NASA-sponsored technology development project, a multi-disciplinary team consisting of industry, academia, and government organizations led by Hamilton Sundstrand is developing an amine based humidity and carbon dioxide (CO₂) removal process and prototype equipment for Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) applications. This system employs thermally linked amine sorbent beds operating as a pressure swing adsorption system, using the vacuum of space for regeneration. The prototype hardware was designed based on a two fault tolerant requirement, resulting in a single system that could handle the metabolic water and carbon dioxide load for a crew size of six. Two, full scale prototype hardware sets, consisting of a linear spool valve, actuator and amine sorbent canister, have been manufactured, tested, and subsequently delivered to NASA JSC. This paper presents the design configuration and the pre-delivery performance test results for the CAMRAS hardware.