How Does Distilling Urine Produce Potable Water?

Shipping domestic water for the International Space Station costs tens of millions of dollars each year. NASA is distressed by this and has invented a "urine cycle machine" that can convert astronaut's urine into Clean drinking water, which greatly saves the high cost of transporting water from Earth to the space station.

Urine circulation machine

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Shipping domestic water for the International Space Station costs tens of millions of dollars each year. NASA is distressed by this and has invented a "urine cycle machine" that can convert astronaut's urine into Clean drinking water, which greatly saves the high cost of transporting water from Earth to the space station.

Astronauts drank "urine" instead of drinking water. The urine cycle went to space in 2008.

Expensive: Space Station $ 3,000 for a glass of water

A glass of water for $ 3,000 is the world's most expensive "hotel"-a genuine price on the International Space Station. NASA and Russia's NASA send these domestic waters to the International Space Station via space shuttles or cargo ships, which cost an average of $ 11,000 per litre of water. Each astronaut on the International Space Station uses an average of about 4.4 liters of water per day, including drinking and washing. This means that each astronaut spends as much as $ 48,400 per day!

Distressed: NASA wants astronauts to drink "urine"

Currently, the International Space Station requires at least 2,200 liters of fresh water each year, which costs at least $ 24 million. In addition, the International Space Station's storage of fresh water also wastes valuable space. By 2009, the number of astronauts on the International Space Station may increase to 6, and more domestic water will be needed. Every year so many dollars are spent on the "water bill" of the International Space Station. NASA apparently feels fed up. NASA scientists have decided to simply let astronauts drink their "urine" to quench their thirst in the future.

It is reported that NASA experts have invented a high-tech machine that can convert astronauts' urine, sweat, domestic sewage, and even mouse urine from the space laboratory into pure water.

Renee Carter, an engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntersville, Alabama, USA, is a responsible engineer for the "urine cycle machine", which is also known as "water recovery system." The team has conducted final tests on this machine.

Rest assured: Urine is more hygienic than tap water

In general, a urine cycle machine can purify 6 liters of water per hour, so astronauts on the International Space Station need only run the machine for 5 hours a day to recover enough water for one day. Carter claims that the drinking water produced by this urine cycle machine is even more pure and sanitary than tap water in any city on the planet.

Carter is convinced that "

Eight steps to make urine "pure water"

When the machine is installed on the International Space Station, as a first step, astronauts urinate, a chemical device on the "urine cycle machine" will add chemicals to the urine to prevent chemical reactions in the urine and hinder the growth of microorganisms. In the second step, this mixed urine will be pumped to a distillation cylinder. The cylinder rotates rapidly, causing the urine to form a mist on the cylinder wall, and then the urine is heated to 40 degrees Celsius, but the pressure inside it is There is only 0.05 atmosphere pressure, so the urine will evaporate quickly to form distilled water. After distillation again and again, until 85% of the water in the urine is recovered, the third step, the remaining 15% of waste urine will be filled into " In a bucket inside the "Progress" cargo ship, when too much garbage was loaded on it, it was projected and burned in the atmosphere.

In the fourth step, the distilled water extracted from the urine will flow into a 45-liter water tank together with other domestic wastewater, and is ready to be further purified by the "water treatment equipment". In the fifth step, a filter will filter out any water greater than 0.5 Micron particles; in the sixth step, water will flow through the filter screen to screen out the remaining dissolved pollutants; in the seventh step, water will flow through a catalyst reactor heated to 130 degrees Celsius to filter the alcohol and acetone in the water. Can kill bacteria, fungi and viruses in water; in the eighth step, the machine will add 1 to 4 milligrams of iodine per liter of water to prevent microorganisms derived from the water in the future. These recycled pure water will be pumped into a 57 liter storage bucket Medium for reuse by astronauts.

Save a lot of future space exploration

The use of the "urine cycle machine" in space will be of great significance for humans to explore space. Because human beings are building a lunar base and carrying a manned exploration of Mars in the future, how to carry enough drinking water has always been the headache for space experts. Now, when astronauts build a lunar base on the surface of the moon, the "urine cycle machine" will be one of the essential things on the lunar base. After all, the "urine cycle machine" will save NASA hundreds of millions of dollars in water bills in the future. When astronauts land on the moon again, they will not be able to urinate on the moon and waste their urine because they are in space. Your urine will be as expensive as gold.

The dynamic water vapor separation device in Shenzhou 9 uses the astronaut's urine to perform water vapor separation. This time, the three astronauts will test whether the "urine circulator" can really "urine turns water". However, the astronauts in this experiment will not drink their own urine, but will verify that such "magic" is truly realized in the future. The first batch of "urine water" will be sent back to the ground for rigorous testing. Only after all the indicators are qualified will future astronauts have a "drink urine" instruction.