TDA RESEARCH, INC. — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: H1

Description

<p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">Human exploration of Mars, as well as unmanned sample return missions from Mars can benefit greatly from the use of propellants and life-support consumables produced from the resources available on Mars</p><p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">Mars&rsquo; CO₂ rich atmosphere offers an abundant staring material on which to synthesize needed resources such as oxygen, carbon monoxide, and methane. The preferred method of oxygen generation uses a solid oxide electrolyzer (SOE) to produce oxygen in one stream and a mixture of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide as the waste gases.</p><p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">&nbsp;</p><p style="margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in">TDA Research proposes to develop a highly efficient system for separation and re-circulation of the unreacted CO₂ from the SOE processes. TDA&rsquo;s system uses a novel adsorbent that removes the unreacted CO₂ at temperatures &gt; 650&deg;C, without any need for cooling it down. The specific objective of the Phase I work is to develop a regenerable high temperature CO₂ sorbent that regenerates via thermal swing or pressure (vacuum) swing and demonstrate the ejector concept and thermal swing concept for gas recirculation in a breadboard system.</p>