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A solid amine based Regenerative CO2 Removal System (RCRS) has been selected by NASA/JSC for extended Orbiter missions. To better understand the performance of solid amine, a bench scale solid amine test stand was built at JSC. The core of the test stand is a 1″ diameter by 3″ long adsorption bed, which was packed with solid amine adsorbent along with a heat transfer material, Duocel. The test bed was designed for evaluating mass and heat transfer performance of the solid amine system under various operating conditions. The paper will discuss the design and construction details of the test bed, as well as test results, including adsorption breakthrough, adsorption and desorption of CO2 and H2O vapor. A model for predicting the performance of regenerative CO2 and H2O vapor adsorption of the solid amine system under various operating conditions has been developed in parallel with the testing of the solid amine test stand.

In 1989, NASA began the modeling of life support systems using ASPEN, adetailed chemical process simulation software package. In the past year, several atmospheric revitalization subsystems (ARS) were modeled at a relatively low level of detail (called ‘system level’) using ASPEN. These models included partial reduction of Martian CO2 and a bioregenerative life support subsystem (BRLSS). The individual component and subsystem models were integrated into three different system-level ARS models: a baseline physico-chemical case, a case with a BRLSS, and a case using partial reduction of Martian CO2. These ASPEN models included the FORTRAN interfaces necessary for integration with another program, G189A, to perform “quasitransient” modeling (periodic pseudo-steady-state model passes with transient updating in between). Finally, detailed models were prepared for several ARS subsystems.