Enzyme-based CO2 capture for advanced life support

Elevated CO2 levels in air can lead to impaired functioning and even death to humans. Control of CO2 is critical in confined spaces that have little physical or biological buffering capacity (e.g., spacecraft, submarines, or aircraft). A novel enzyme-based contained liquid membrane bioreactor was designed for CO2 capture and certain application cases are reported in this article. The results show that the liquid layer accounts for the major transport resistance. With addition of carbonic anhydrase, the transport resistance decreased by 71%. Volatile organic compounds of the type and concentration expected to be present in either the crew cabin or a plant growth chamber did not influence carbonic anhydrase activity or reactor operation during 1-day operation. Alternative sweep method studies, examined as a means of eliminating consumables, showed that the feed gas could be used successfully in a bypass mode when combined with medium vacuum pressure (-85 kPa) to achieve CO2 separation comparable to that with an inert sweep gas. The reactor exhibited a selectivity for CO2 versus N2 of 1400:1 and CO2 versus O2 is 866:1. The CO2 permeance was 1.44 x 10(-7) mol m-2 Pa-1 s-1 (4.3 x 10(-4) cm3 cm-2 s-1 cmHg-1) at a feed concentration of 0.1% CO2. These data show that the enzyme-based contained liquid membrane is a promising candidate technology that may be suitable for NASA applications to control CO2 in the crew or plant chambers.