SBIR-STTR Award

We propose a new spray drying technology for the recovery and recycle of water while stabilizing the solid wastes or residues as found in advanced life support systems. The proposed effort is focused on the recovery of water from concentrated waste water recovery system brine and other concentrates. Hypogravity and microgravity environments will make space based systems compact thus reducing its equivalent system mass. The application of spray drying to brine is a first step in the development of a space-based system but spray drying is likely to be applicable to the dewatering and stabilization of solid wastes. Spray drying is a one step continuous process where a solution, slurry, sludge or paste is transformed from a fluid state to dried masses by spraying the feed into a hot drying medium. The resulting dry products are granules or agglomerates and the drying medium bearing the removed moisture. Using one of several methods the drying medium yields the recovered water. The exact nature of the dried solid and recovered moisture depends on the physical and chemical properties of the feed and the design and operation of the drier. At the end of Phase II the technology will be at a TRL = 6.

This purpose of this project is to develop a spray drying prototype to for the recovery and recycle of water from concentrated waste water recovery system brine. Spray drying is a one step, continuous process where a solution, slurry, sludge or paste is transformed into a dry solid and clean water. The dry solids powder is easy to transfer and does not foul surfaces. The process is suitable for dewatering brine from the vapor compression distillation processor and other sources. It may serve as a backup processor for one or more existing water recovery systems unit processors. We will employ alternative heating methods and advanced process control.