Technical Paper
Utilization of the Space Station Detergent IGEPON by a Candidate Organism for Use in a Space Biological Waste Reactor
1998-07-13
981608
The microgravity environment of space introduces a major new variable for consideration that will affect the design and operation of bioreactors. Adequate aeration for aerobic bioreactors will be a challenge as will gas/liquid separation, removal of carbon dioxide and other bacterial metabolic waste products, control algorithms, and overall performance assessment. These challenges must be addressed in order to fully assess the efficacy of biological approaches to the recovery of potable water from wastewater in microgravity. The first step in this process is to define the fermentation parameters of the organism or consortia that will be used in these space bioreactors. This study was designed to investigate the ability of bacteria to degrade the space station detergent IGEPON.