NASA SBIR 2004 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
TDA Research, Inc.
12345 West 52nd Ave
Wheat Ridge ,CO 80033 - 1916
(303) 422 - 7819

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Gokhan   Alptekin
galptekin@tda.com
12345 W. 52nd Ave.
Wheat Ridge, CO  80033 -1916
(303) 940 - 2349

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
NASA's planned future missions set stringent demands on the design of the Portable Life Support Systems (PLSS), requiring dramatic reductions in weight, decreased reliance on supplies and greater flexibility on the types of missions. The CO2 and humidity control unit in the existing PLSS design is relatively large, since it has to remove 8 hours worth of CO2. If the sorbent regeneration can be carried out during the extravehicular activity (EVA) with a relatively high regeneration frequency, the size of the sorbent canister and weight can be significantly reduced.

TDA Research, Inc. (TDA) proposes to develop a compact, regenerable sorbent-based system to control CO2 and humidity in the space suit ventilation loop. The sorbent can be regenerated using space vacuum during the EVA, eliminating all duration-limiting elements in the life support system.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The main attraction of our research to NASA is its ability to provide a lightweight, compact, and simple CO2 and H2O removal system for the PLSS. Use of regenerable systems that reduce weight and volume in the EMU is of critical importance to NASA both for low orbit operations and for long duration manned missions.

The sorbent developed for this project can also find use in the spacecraft air revitalization. For the shuttle application, in which CO2 recovery is not as critical. the same pressure swing system can be used in combination with the space purge. In other spacecraft systems, this system can be coupled with a CO2 pump/compressor, storage tank and a Sabatier reactor for an Advanced Air Revitalization System to carry our combined CO2 and humidity control.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The sorbents developed in this project can be used in the purification of natural gas, using these sorbents for CO2/CH4 separation. Various CO2 removal technologies are being used currently to carry out CO2 removal from the natural gas, including liquid amines and molecular sieves. Both of these systems has very high power requirement due the energy intensive regeneration process. Since our sorbent can be regenerated by simple pressure swing, the energy consumption in these separation systems will be greatly reduced. CO2/CH4 separation systems will be even more important in the future as the use of lower grade natural gas that contains higher CO2 levels will increase as the U.S. demand for energy grows. These sorbents can be applied to the Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) systems used in commercial hydrogen manufacturing, providing a lower cost alternative to the PSA.