SPACE LAB TECHNOLOGIES, LLC — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: H12

Description

<p>Initial space food crops will be &ldquo;pick-and-eat&rdquo;, requiring produce disinfection on board spacecraft.&nbsp; The state of the art disinfection method on the ISS is Pro-San&reg; wipes developed by Microcide, Inc.&nbsp; This method is not regenerable, requiring resupply mass, creating solid waste, and requiring crew time to manually clean vegetables.&nbsp; Also, wipes cannot easily disinfect produce with a lot of crevices, such as leafy vegetables or radishes.&nbsp; Other disinfection methods investigated by researchers have included hydrogen peroxide and cold plasma, which both negatively impact food quality.&nbsp; Chemical methods that produce toxic by-products or residues on the produce are unacceptable solutions.&nbsp; UV for disinfection is also problematic, as light does not easily penetrate crevices in the produce surface.&nbsp; Space Lab Technologies, LLC proposes Produce Wash and Aeration for Space Habitats (Pro-WASH&trade;), a hybrid ozonating and Pro-San&reg; water wash system for on-board produce disinfection.&nbsp; Pro-Wash&trade; offers several innovative features relative to state-of-the-art.&nbsp; It is an autonomous and versatile.<em>&nbsp; </em>It not only disinfects, but also optionally rinses, steams, and dehydrates produce.&nbsp; A gently spinning, grated wash basket increases the contact of wash fluid with vegetable surfaces and crevices.&nbsp; An ozone generator diffuses safe levels of re-generable ozone into the wash-water stream for disinfection without noticeable reduction in food quality.&nbsp; Optionally, a <em>Pro-San</em>&reg; wash water solution provides an alternate disinfection method. &nbsp;A self-cleaning mode reduces crew time needed for maintenance and increases long term reliability. &nbsp;Pro-WASH&trade; operates across gravity regimes (0-1 g). Finally, the design is extensible to disinfection of non-produce items, such as utensils, toothbrushes, laundry, etc. &nbsp;&nbsp;In Phase I, Space Lab will combine conceptual design and analysis with prototype development and testing to establish technical and economic feasibility for produce disinfection with Pro-WASH&trade;.</p>