Feature

Black water treatment unit for Concordia

Concordia Station in Antarctica

The Antarctic environment is protected by International Treaties and all waste materials must be removed from the Continent, making wastewater treatment a major issue. ESA, in association with the MELiSSA experts, is developing the necessary grey water (for example shower water) and black water (for example toilet water) treatment units to the Concordia Station.
 
For 15 years, ESA has been developing technologies in all the main Life Support areas: air and water recycling, waste management, food production, contaminants measurement and control. These technologies, which are based either on physico-chemical or biological technologies have reached different levels of development.

Due to the extreme difficulty to simulate waste diversity a proper demonstration of the waste-recycling unit cannot be done without life test campaign. It is proposed to take advantage of the IPEV/ESA collaboration to test a waste-recycling unit devoted to black water on the Concordia site in Antarctica.

Based on previous research activities including recommended design of the Black Water Treatment Unit (BWTU), it is proposed to build and test the Black water treatment unit for Concordia Station.

For more information see:
http://ecls.esa.int/ecls/
 
 

Start Expected or actual duration Status Prime contractor June '06 9 months To be kicked off EPAS

 
 
 
Last update: 11 May 2006