Formulation of a Simulated Wastewater Influent Composition for Use in the Research of Technologies for Managing Wastewaters Generated during Manned Long-Term Space Exploration and Other Similar Situations—Literature-Based Composition Development

Abstract

The prospect of humans inhabiting planetary bodies is gaining interest among research and development communities, with the moon being considered as a transitory base camp and Mars the next planet humans will inhabit. NASA’s Mission to Mars program is set to have humans inhabiting Mars within on-planet space camps by the Year 2030, which has tremendously increased research and development for space exploration—including research oriented toward human life support in long-term planetary lodging camps. The sustenance of human life on Mars will not be trivial due to the unavailability of an appropriate atmosphere and usable water. This situation requires a self-sustaining human life support system that can provide the basic needs such are breathable air, potable water, food, and energy. The feasibility of sending a payload with resources adequate to support long-term human inhabitation is not reasonable, which means every resource within a Mars space camp is valuable, including human-produced wastes. A biorefinery system that treats wastewater and can also produce valuable products such as oxygen, food, and energy offers a form of circular utilization of valuable resources. To conduct research for such systems requires a wastewater influent that is representative of the wastewater to be generated by the space crew within this isolated, confined environment, which is different from what is generated on Earth due to limited variability in diet, human activity, and lifestyle in this confined area. Collection of actual wastewater influent from an isolated environment supporting humans is challenging. Additionally, to ensure a safe working environment in the laboratory and avoid the imposed threat of handling actual human feces, the proposed synthetic, non-human feces containing wastewater influent formulation offers an easy-to-produce and safer-to-handle option. This paper reviews several synthetic wastewater compositions that have been formulated for space exploration purposes. None of the formulations were found to be realistic nor adequate for a space-camp-type scenario. Thus, the formulation of a synthetic wastewater for simulating a wastewater influent from a human space-based camp is proposed in this paper. In addition, the physical, chemical, and biodegradation characteristics of the final formulation designed are presented to illustrate the value of the proposed influent formulation.