MELiSSA Pilot Plant – Laboratory Claude Chipaux

Partner

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona – UAB

Location

Departament d’Enginyeria Química, Biològica i Ambiental. Escola d’Enginyeria.

Campus UAB. Carrer de les Sitges s/n. 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona

Functionalities

The MELiSSA Pilot Plant is the technology demonstration laboratory for the international MELiSSA Consortium, developing Life Support Systems for humans in Space long-duration missions. It consists of a loop of several bioreactors using the wastes of a crew in Space (water, urine, CO₂, organic waste) as resources, to provide food, potable water and O₂ in a sustainable way, more independent from supplies from Earth. For demonstration purposes, the Pilot Plant uses rats in an isolator as crew mock-up. The Pilot Plant has been built using industrial quality standards.

Equipment

Several bioreactors operating in continuous process, with specific microorganisms and plants, to perform their specific function within the loop:

Anaerobic thermophilic degradation of organic wastes (stirred tank with tangential filtration external loop, 100L of operation volume)
Urine hydrolysis, reduction of COD and nitrification (packed-bed bioreactor with immobilized cells, 6L of operation volume)
CO₂capture, O₂ production and generation of edible material de material (external loop air-lift photobioreactor, 85 L of operation volume, and hydroponic culture higher plant chamber with capacity for 100 plants and 5 m² surface. LEDs illumination on both systems)

The Pilot Plant has its own SCADA dedicated system for monitoring and control of the different bioreactors, higher plant and animal isolator, to ensure operation at the optimal environmental conditions (P,T, pH, pO₂, pCO₂, EC, RH, etc.) and controlled adjustment of the main process variables (gas and liquid flow-rates, illumination, cellular concentration, etc.) over continuous experiments lasting several months.

List of services and rates

The services offered are of consultancy to support projects considering translating some of the approaches and technologies used in MELiSSA to terrestrial applications, in the scope of circularity and sustainability. The associated cost can be discussed in a case-by-case basis.