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Post by anonymous on May 13, 2019 17:51:16 GMT
Is it possible to create fully regenerative (expends only energy, not material) life support for CO2 scrubbing and oxygen generation without using aeroponics/hydroponics/aquaponics? Or rather, is there a reasonable method to have a closed system without using plants/algae? Or is it impossible without using up chemicals or needing very huge and energy-intensive production plants for getting rid of CO2 and making oxygen? It doesn't have to turn the CO2 directly into oxygen (i.e. how chloroplast doesn't turn CO2 into oxygen but still gets rid of first and makes second), just turn it into something that can be used by the system as a whole to make oxygen again.
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Post by dragon on May 16, 2019 23:37:08 GMT
A combination of sabatier, water electrolysis and methane pyrolysis lets you have a life support system the only output of which is pyrolytic carbon. This closes the cycle on everything but carbon itself, feeding the carbon back to the crew will require serious reprocessing (unless they need those carbon tablets for digestion problems ). In fact, except for the pyrolysis step, this is what's currently running on the ISS. The ISS has a mostly closed oxygen and water loop. They're even proposing it for terrestial applications, and if methane (which is what you get out of a sabatier reactor) wasn't so cheap, it'd be a good way of dealing with atmospheric CO2 while providing a convenient source of fuel. Actual energy would have to come from somewhere else, but nuclear power could take care of that easily enough.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on May 17, 2019 6:25:16 GMT
It's not really closed cycle if it still expends food.
-Wall -pedantic
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Post by dragon on May 17, 2019 8:41:37 GMT
I mentioned it. "Food" is how carbon enters the system, and I explicitly excluded it. Other that come with it have negligible mass and there's no point closing the loop on them.
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