Multifunctional Titanosilicates as Adsorber/Separator of Carbon Dioxide and Water for Portable Life Support System (PLSS)

Mike Manning and Al Sacco, Jr.

A lightweight fully regenerative water/carbon dioxide separator is a necessity for long duration, deep space exploration. One critical component is a regenerative water/carbon dioxide separator that can capture the water for recovery, and either capture and recover the carbon dioxide or vent it to a low pressure environment (i.e., Mars). Titanosilicates can be adjusted both with respect to size and shape, and with respect to pore size. These have been used commercially to separate water and carbon dioxide. By varying size and shape the pressure drop in minimized, while variations in the pore size for a given structure allows the customization of these high surface area (~500 m2/g) adsorbents. As a potential added benefit, the constituents to make titanosilicates can be obtain on the lunar surface from ilmenite reduction (regolith is ~ 20 wt% Ilmenite) and silicates.