The Trash Compaction & Processing System (TCPS) being developed for long duration space missions compresses, safens, and dries crew-generated standard trash, recovers and recycles water, and manages gaseous effluent produced during trash processing. As the trash is processed at elevated temperatures, it emits gaseous effluent containing Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and other complex gaseous contaminants which evolve from the trash load. To conserve valuable resources during flight these gases are managed and recycled to reduce consumable losses. A Catalytic Oxidizer (CatOx) was developed by Sierra Space to treat this contaminated gas and render it safe for reintroduction into the cabin environment. VOCs are catalytically decomposed at high temperatures using a specially synthesized proprietary catalyst. Resulting gas outflows can be safely released into the cabin atmosphere, or through other downstream systems. The TCPS CatOx is functional at diverse pressure ranges and can be readily adopted for other trace contaminant control applications in spaceflight. Testing using representative contaminants was conducted to characterize and quantify the performance of the CatOx in support of the TCPS flight hardware development, with discussion of performance measures including destruction efficiency, thermal performance, and suitability for integration with other life-support systems.
Klopotic et al. (2024) studied this question.