Process Converts Human Waste into Rocket Fuel
Hello reader!
It
follows a note published on the day (11/30) in the website “Parabolic Arc” noting
that orocess converts Human Waste into Rocket Fuel.
Duda Falcão
News
Process Converts Human Waste
into Rocket Fuel
By Brad Buck
University of Florida
November 30, 2014, at 5:07 am
(Credit: University of Florida)
Pratap Pullammanappallil poses in his lab next to an
anaerobic
digester, which turns human waste into rocket fuel.
|
GAINESVILLE,
Fla. — Buck Rogers surely couldn’t have seen this one coming,
but at NASA’s request, University of Florida researchers have figured out how to turn human waste —
yes, that kind — into rocket fuel.
Adolescent jokes aside, the process
finally makes useful something that until now has been collected to burn up on
re-entry. What’s more, like so many other things developed for the space
program, the process could well turn up on Earth, said Pratap Pullammanappallil, a UF
associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering.
“It could be used on campus or around
town, or anywhere, to convert waste into fuel,” Pullammanappallil said.
In 2006, NASA began making plans to
build an inhabited facility on the moon’s surface between 2019 and 2024. As
part of NASA’s moon-base goal, the agency wanted to reduce the weight of
spacecraft leaving Earth. Historically, waste generated during spaceflight
would not be used further. NASA stores it in containers until it’s loaded into
space cargo vehicles that burn as they pass back through the Earth’s
atmosphere. For future long-term missions, though, it would be impractical to
bring all the stored waste back to Earth.
Dumping it on the moon’s surface is not
an option, so the space agency entered into an agreement with UF to develop
test ideas.
Pullammanappallil and then-graduate
student Abhishek Dhoble accepted the challenge.
“We were trying to find out how much
methane can be produced from uneaten food, food packaging and human waste,”
said Pullammanappallil, a UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
faculty member and Dhoble’s adviser. “The idea was to see whether we could make
enough fuel to launch rockets and not carry all the fuel and its weight from
Earth for the return journey. Methane can be used to fuel the rockets. Enough
methane can be produced to come back from the moon.”
NASA started by supplying the UF
scientists with a packaged form of chemically produced human waste that also
included simulated food waste, towels, wash cloths, clothing and packaging
materials, Pullammanappallil said. He and Dhoble, now a doctoral student at the
University of Illinois, ran laboratory tests to find out how much methane could
be produced from the waste and how quickly.
They found the process could produce 290
liters of methane per crew per day, all produced in a week, Pullammanappallil
said.
Their results led to the creation of an
anaerobic digester process, which kills pathogens from human waste, and
produces biogas — a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide by breaking down
organic matter in waste.
In earth-bound applications, that fuel
could be used for heating, electricity generation or transportation.
The digestion process also would produce
about 200 gallons of non-potable water annually from all the waste. That is
water held within the organic matter, which is released as organic matter
decomposes. Through electrolysis, the water can then be split into hydrogen and
oxygen, and the astronauts can breathe oxygen as a back-up system. The exhaled
carbon dioxide and hydrogen can be converted to methane and water in the
process, he said.
The study was published last month in
the journal Advances in Space Research.
Source: Website
Parabolic Arc - http://www.parabolicarc.com/
Comentário: E essa
agora galera, segundo esse pesquisador da Universidade da Flórida, com cara de
indiano, merda humana agora serve também como combustível para foguetes. Bom
quem sabe essa notícia é do interesse dos grupos brasileiros que trabalham com
propulsão de foguetes? Bom, tá aí a notícia.
Aqui no Brasil precisamos de gente como ele, principalmente na politica. Gente para transformar merda em algo produtivo para todos.
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