Boeing Aerospace Company (BAC) is currently supporting studies in non-phase change methods for recovering wash water generated by space vehicle crews. The reverse osmosis technology appears to be promising for this application. Accordingly/Boeing embarked on an Independent Research and Development (IR and D) test of this technology in 1986.
A laboratory reverse osmosis system was built using hollow fiber, tube-side feed membranes. These membranes, as supplied by Bend Research, Inc., were of polyamide material deposited within a polysulfone hollow fiber substrate.
This paper reports the results of water recovery testing performed in the following three areas of interest: (1) general reverse osmosis membrane performance on baseline deionized water, soap, and salt solutions, (2) reverse osmosis performance on wash water, using actual shower water as a test media, and (3) bacteriological control methods for processing shower water.