Waste is always problem. This is particularly true during NASA’s space missions, where an astronaut will typically produce 3.6 pounds of waste per day from biodegradable (such as food) and non-biodegradable (such as plastic) sources.
To address this issue, a research team comprised of engineering and other technical students from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology teamed up with researchers from India, and have received a $750,000 grant from the space agency to solve this problem, and potentially help with another at the same time.
As NASA plans longer trips away from the Earth, the waste issue becomes more prominent, and is exacerbated by the energy requirement needed for the mission itself, and to haul around all that waste.
The researchers are building on the work of Venkataramana Gadhamshetty who, with his team, converted discarded tomatoes into electricity. This was accomplished using biological microorganisms found in the extreme environment of the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), 4,850 feet below the earth’s surface.
“These SURF extremophiles are known to survive harsh environments typical to extraterrestrial space, where it is seemingly uninhabitable. The extremophile biology provides a platform for provocative research to develop bio-modules to generate electricity from solid form of wastes, inhibit pathogens in human waste, and recycle the waste during space missions,” said Gadhamshetty, from the department of civil and environmental engineering.
The biggest draw to using the extremophiles to reduce waste is that they naturally produce biohydrogen or bioethanol in a single production step, without the need for pre-treatment, separation or fermentation of the waste. This by-product could directly convert into usable energy, while also reducing the amount of waste needing to be stored.
The SURF facility conducts its research at the abandoned Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, South Dakota. Ranging from research into dark matter and neutrinos to engineering and geology, the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL) facility has been operating in the mine since 2007.
The SD School of Mines students are working with the Sanford facility, as well as other schools in South Dakota, on the NASA project, and hopes to revolutionize how waste is handled.
“This multidisciplinary NASA project has become a reality only due to the exceptional range of interdisciplinary researchers - catalysis, extremophile biology, environmental and chemical engineering, and nanotechnology - from South Dakota Mines, South Dakota State University, University of South Dakota, and several businesses, including Hexpoint technologies,” Gadhamshetty said.
As this research could lead to an efficient alternative to chemical fuel cells, you can be sure NASA is keenly interested in this new direction of energy production.