Lindeboom, R.E.F.De Paepe, J.Vanoppen, M.Alonso-Fariñas, BernabéCoessens, W.Alloul, A.Christiaens, M.E.R.Dotremont, C.Beckers, H.2020-10-212020-10-212020Lindeboom, R.E.F., De Paepe, J., Vanoppen, M., Alonso-Fariñas, Bernabé, Coessens, W., Alloul, A.,...,Beckers, H. (2020). A five-stage treatment train for water recovery from urine and shower water for long-term human Space missions. Desalination, 495 (114634), 1-9.00119164https://hdl.handle.net/11441/102120Long-term human Space missions will rely on regenerative life support as resupply of water, oxygen and food comes with constraints. The International Space Station (ISS) relies on an evaporation/condensation system to recover 74–85% of the water in urine, yet suffers from repetitive scaling and biofouling while employing ha-zardous chemicals. In this study, an alternative non-sanitary five-stage treatment train for one “astronaut” was integrated through a sophisticated monitoring and control system. This so-called Water Treatment Unit Breadboard (WTUB) successfully treated urine (1.2-L-d−1) with crystallisation, COD-removal, ammonification, nitrification and electrodialysis, before it was mixed with shower water (3.4-L-d−1). Subsequently, ceramic nanofiltration and single-pass flat-sheet RO were used. A four-months proof-of-concept period yielded: (i) chemical water quality meeting the hygienic standards of the European Space Agency, (ii) a 87- ± -5% permeate recovery with an estimated theoretical primary energy requirement of 0.2-kWhp-L−1, (iii) reduced scaling po-tential without anti-scalant addition and (iv) and a significant biological reduction in biofouling potential re-sulted in stable but biofouling-limited RO permeability of 0.5 L-m−2-h−1-bar−1. Estimated mass breakeven dates and a comparison with the ISS Water Recovery System for a hypothetical Mars transit mission show that WTUB is a promising biological membrane-based alternative to heat-based systems for manned Space missions.application/pdf9 p.engAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Resource recoveryMELISSAISSESAVapor compression distillationWater reuseinfo:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2020.114634