Precision Combustion, Inc. and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center have been developing and testing prototype high temperature catalytic oxidizers based on PCI's patented Microlith® technology to meet the requirements of future spaceflight exploration missions. Based on the demonstrated performance (20,000+ hours) of a subscale prototype, a next-generation prototype was designed and demonstrated to meet exploration contaminant load control demands while upgrading the prototype form and fit to match flight-compatible interfaces. The design was further improved with lightweighting efforts targeting ~20% weight reduction. Prototype design considerations also intended to reduce power consumption, impacting process thermal and hydraulic performance, are discussed herein. We also report on the performance characteristics of the packaged, lightweight catalytic oxidizer.
Vilekar et al. (Sun,) studied this question.