Paragon Space Development Corporation's patented Condensate Separator for Microgravity Conditions (COSMIC) is a next-generation phase separation technology that captures and removes liquid condensate from a gas stream through rotary inertial separation. Initial work on COSMIC targeted a design and size appropriate for crew cabin temperature and humidity control systems (THCS). This paper describes a sub-scale COSMIC (mini-COSMIC) designed for much lower gas flow rates and operation with non-standard gasses for phase separation applications in other key subsystems of a regenerative or closed-loop Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS), in particular water recovery from carbon dioxide (CO2) removal/reduction and oxygen (O2) generation, as well as gas separation from urinal intake flow. The subscale design retains the principal advantages inherent to the COSMIC technology: phase separation and liquid pumping in a single-stage unit, reliable separation performance that is insensitive to upstream flow conditions and different liquid inflow regimes (e.g. slugs), compact envelope, low power draw, and very low gas-side pressure drop. Mini-COSMIC functions under micro, partial, and full gravity and its design allows it to also operate as a fan, thus potentially eliminating the need for a separate fan/blower. This paper discusses the application space for liquid/gas phase separators, provides comparisons to the state of the art, and presents analytical modeling and performance predictions grounded in test data.
Jacobi et al. (2024) studied this question.