The upcoming long-term space missions to the Moon and Mars require an effective solution to the problem of organizing a closed cycle of water supply for the aircraft. Accordingly, the development of systems and technologies to ensure the highest possible degree of water recovery from wastewater is an extremely urgent task today. As part of the research work, experimental studies were carried out on water recovery during the processing of all types of wastewater generated on the spacecraft: urine, flash water, humidity condensate, hygienic water. The total amount of wastewater processed during the experiment is equal to the daily volume of wastewater generated as a result of the vital activity of a 4 people crew. Natural human urine, pre-treated with an appropriate preservative agent, was used as urine. Artificial test solutions were used as humidity condensate and hygienic water. The proposed technology is based on the principle of processing all types of wastewater in one apparatus, which provides undeniable advantages in terms of simplicity and reliability of the equipment. The Centrifugal Multi-Effect Distiller (CMED) was used as such a device. As a result of laboratory tests, it was shown that the proposed technology provides a Recovery rate of 98%. Specific energy consumption to obtain 1 liter of clean water is less than 300 W*h. The distillate obtained as a result of the experiment meets the basic requirements.
Rifert et al. (Sun,) studied this question.