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Methane Utilisation in Life Support Systems

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Methane Utilisation in Life Support Systems 2010:066 MASTER'S THESIS Methane Utilisation in Life Support Systems Franz Kenn Luleå University of Technology Master Thesis, Continuation Courses Space Science and Technology Department of Space Science, Kiruna 2010:066 - ISSN: 1653-0187 - ISRN: LTU-PB-EX--10/066--SE CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY FRANZ KENN METHANE UTILISATION IN LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING Astronautics and Space Engineering MSc THESIS Academic Year 2009-10 Supervisors: Hovland (ESA), Kingston (CU), Barabash (LTU) July 2010 CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ASTRONAUTICS AND SPACE ENGINEERING MSc THESIS Academic Year 2009-10 FRANZ KENN METHANE UTILISATION IN LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS Supervisors: Scott Hovland (European Space Agency) Jennifer Kingston (Cranfield University) Victoria Barabash (Lule˚aTekniska Universitet) July 2010 This thesis is submitted in partial (45%) fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. c Cranfield University 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the copyright owner. Abstract Due to high resupply costs, especially for space habitats beyond low earth orbit, future manned space missions will require environmental control and life support systems with a high degree of regenerativity. On the international space station ISS, the longest-duration space mission up to now, water recycling from urine was just recently established while all exhaled carbon dioxide is still vented over board. Possible ways to overcome this waste of resources and to save on resupply mass are examined in this thesis, mainly focusing on the utilisation of carbon dioxide. Various methods for its decomposition are pointed out, which would facilitate complete recycling of oxygen within the life support system. Ways to make use of the generated excess carbon for partial food synthesis or ion propulsion are presented as well. The ACLS air revitalisation system, which is currently being developed by EADS Astrium under contract with ESA, will be able to recover the oxygen from exhaled carbon dioxide, but the employed Sabatier process generates methane as a side product. If this methane was to be vented over board, hydrogen would be lost and had to be resupplied. Therefore, a pyrolysis device is proposed, cracking the methane into its constituents and recovering the hydrogen. Assuming the scenario of a space station in orbit around an atmosphere bearing planet, the excess carbon is used for ion propulsion allowing for station keeping. Plans to develop such a device and to prove its practicability on board the ISS round off this thesis. i ii Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to all my supervisors: Scott Hovland at ESTEC for his support and encouragement, Jenny Kingston of Cranfield Univer- sity for showing interest in the topic and even paying a visit to the Netherlands, and Victoria Barabash of Lule˚aUniversity of Technology for being my second university supervisor. Also, I would like to thank the SpaceMaster organisers for making the last two years possible. Thanks to my office mate Jan Th¨omeland the colleagues from our corridor for the friendly working environment at ESTEC. A big thank you to my house mates Karolina, Katherine and Ozg¨un,and¨ to all SpaceMaster Round 4 students spread around the globe: I really enjoyed shar- ing many unique experiences with you throughout the last two years, and I am looking forward to meeting all of you again in October! As in all endeavours, I could rely on the support of my family and my best friend Thomas: Thank you very much! Finally, I would like to thank Henrike: Not only for proofreading this thesis, but for being who you are and for always being there for me! I am truly lucky to have met you. This thesis was typeset with LATEX2e as available within the MiKTEX 2.8 distri- bution, using TeXnicCenter 1.0 for project management and editing. Viewgraphs and sketches were drawn with Microsoft Office Visio 2003, while all depictions of molecules were created with BKChem 0.13.0. iii We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. John Fitzgerald Kennedy iv Contents Contents v List of Figures ix List of Tables xi Abbreviations xiii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Context and Goals of this Thesis . 1 1.2 Thesis Structure . 2 2 Environmental Control and Life Support 3 2.1 The Human Metabolism . 3 2.1.1 Food . 6 2.1.2 Excretions . 8 2.1.3 Metabolic Equation . 10 2.2 Introduction to Life Support Systems . 11 2.2.1 Tasks of a Life Support System . 11 2.2.2 Material Cycles . 12 2.2.3 Components of Physico-Chemical Life Support Systems . 15 2.2.4 Bioregenerative Concepts . 16 2.2.5 Dependence on Mission Scenarios . 17 2.3 Life Support System Implementations . 18 2.3.1 Earthbound Systems . 18 2.3.2 Spaceborn Systems . 20 2.3.3 Prototypes for Spaceflight . 25 2.3.4 More Advanced ECLS Scenarios . 28 2.4 In-Situ Resources and Resupply . 36 2.4.1 In-Situ Resource Utilisation . 36 2.4.2 Resupply Considerations . 40 3 Carbon Dioxide Processing 41 3.1 Sabatier Process . 42 3.2 Bosch Reaction . 42 3.3 Pyrolysis of Carbon Dioxide . 43 3.3.1 Thermal Cracking . 44 3.3.2 Plasma Methods . 44 3.4 Electrolysis of Carbon Dioxide . 44 3.5 Co-Electrolysis of Steam and Carbon Dioxide . 45 v 3.6 Carbon Monoxide Decomposition . 45 3.6.1 Carbon Monoxide Pyrolysis . 46 3.6.2 Boudouard Reaction . 46 3.6.3 Reverse Water Gas Reaction . 47 3.7 Combining Bosch and Boudouard Processes . 47 3.8 Artificial Photosynthesis . 49 3.8.1 Synthesis of Formaldehyde . 49 3.8.2 Formose Reaction . 50 3.8.3 Synthesis of Glycerol . 52 4 Methane Utilisation 53 4.1 Generation and Uses . 54 4.1.1 Generation . 54 4.1.2 Industrial Uses . 54 4.1.3 Further Processing . 57 4.2 Methane as a Propellant . 59 4.2.1 Chemical Propulsion . 59 4.2.2 Gas Thrusters . 60 4.2.3 Ion Thrusters . 61 4.2.4 Comparison of Various Propulsion Concepts . 62 4.3 Methane Pyrolysis . 69 4.3.1 Oxidative Processes . 70 4.3.2 Catalytic Pyrolysis . 70 4.3.3 Thermal Cracking . 70 4.3.4 Plasma processes . 71 4.3.5 Electrostatic Field Plasma . 72 4.3.6 Electromagnetic Field Plasma . 73 4.4 New Approaches to the Breakdown of Methane . 75 4.4.1 Bioregenerative Approach . 75 4.4.2 Plasma Pyrolysis with Magnetic Confinement . 75 4.4.3 Adoptable Industrial Processes . 77 5 Methane Pyrolysis meets Ion Propulsion 79 5.1 Requirements . 80 5.2 Thruster Design . 81 5.2.1 Vacuum Technology . 83 5.2.2 Magnetic Confinement . 84 5.2.3 Mass Spectrometer . 85 5.2.4 Particle Acceleration . 86 5.2.5 Energy Consumption . 88 5.3 Electromagnetic Compatibility . 89 5.4 Modes of Operation . 90 5.5 Development Roadmap . 91 vi 6 Discussion 93 6.1 Operational Considerations . 93 6.2 Remaining Problems . 94 7 Summary 95 7.1 The MICO Thruster . 95 7.2 Other Promising Projects . 95 References 97 A Calculations 109 A.1 Chemical Composition of Food . 109 A.2 Chemical Composition of Faeces . 110 A.3 Weight Budgets of Historic CO2 Removal Techniques . 111 A.4 Required Thrust for ISS Drag Compensation . 112 B Additional Diagrams 113 B.1 System Diagrams . 113 B.2 Carbon Dioxide Processing Flowchart . 114 vii viii List of Figures Unless noted otherwise in the image credits, all figures were created by the author. 1 Basic material cycles of a life support system. 12 2 ECLSS model of an aircraft cabin. All supplies are either stored or externally provided and there is no regenerativity, i.e. no feedback loops. 19 3 ECLSS model of the Mir and ISS space stations. An electrolyser produces oxygen and hydrogen from water, increasing the degree of regenerativity. 24 4 ECLS model of the ACLS, using a Sabatier reactor to process CO2. 26 5 ECLS model of MELiSSA. Note that there are no inputs from ex- ternal sources, as this bioregenerative LSS constitutes a completely closed ecosystem. Image credits: Wattiez et al. (2003) . 27 6 ECLS model of the ACLS with an additional methane pyrolysis assembly. Water and air cycles are closed and only food has to be supplied. 28 7 ECLS model of the ACLS with additional steam reforming and subsequent carbon monoxide processing. The degree of regenera- tivity of this solution is the same as for the combination of ACLS and methane pyrolysis. 29 8 A possible ECLSS design employing CO2 electrolysis. Note that the capability of generating oxygen is limited by the amount of produced CO2. Additional oxygen sources would be needed to compensate for potential imbalances. 30 9 System diagram showing a regenerative ECLSS featuring the re- cycling of urea and faeces. Food has to be provided from external supplies. The oxidiser-fuel ratio of the methane thruster is not op- timal: More oxygen would need to be provided for a more efficient operation. 31 10 Model of a regenerative physico-chemical ECLSS with partial food synthesis. Formaldehyde is synthesised from methane and oxygen and serves as a building block for sugars and glycerol, which are then fed back into the food cycle. 33 11 ECLS layout with ISRU on Mars. Water from Martian ice deposits and CO2 from its atmosphere are used, superseding the need for a closed-loop architecture. 38 12 ECLS model of a possible manned outpost on the Moon. Oxygen is produced from regolith, while hydrogen has to be supplied from earth.
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