Recycling nutrients from organic waste for growing higher plants in the Micro Ecological Life Support System Alternative (MELiSSA) loop during long-term space missions.

Autor: Frossard E; ETH Zurich, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, 8315, Lindau, Switzerland. Electronic address: emmanuel.frossard@usys.ethz.ch., Crain G; ETH Zurich, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, 8315, Lindau, Switzerland., Giménez de Azcárate Bordóns I; ETH Zurich, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, 8315, Lindau, Switzerland., Hirschvogel C; ETH Zurich, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, 8315, Lindau, Switzerland., Oberson A; ETH Zurich, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, 8315, Lindau, Switzerland., Paille C; ESA/ESTEC, TEC-MMG, Noordwijk, The Netherlands., Pellegri G; ETH Zurich, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, 8315, Lindau, Switzerland., Udert KM; Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, 8600, Dubendorf, Switzerland; ETH Zurich, Institute of Environmental Engineering, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Life sciences in space research [Life Sci Space Res (Amst)] 2024 Feb; Vol. 40, pp. 176-185. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Aug 24.
DOI: 10.1016/j.lssr.2023.08.005
Abstrakt: Space agencies are developing Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSS) in view of upcoming long-term crewed space missions. Most of these BLSS plan to include various crops to produce different types of foods, clean water, and O 2 while capturing CO 2 from the atmosphere. However, growing these plants will require the appropriate addition of nutrients in forms that are available. As shipping fertilizers from Earth would be too costly, it will be necessary to use waste-derived nutrients. Using the example of the MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) loop of the European Space Agency, this paper reviews what should be considered so that nutrients recycled from waste streams could be used by plants grown in a hydroponic system. Whereas substantial research has been conducted on nitrogen and phosphorus recovery from human urine, much work remains to be done on recovering nutrients from other liquid and solid organic waste. It is essential to continue to study ways to efficiently remove sodium and chloride from urine and other organic waste to prevent the spread of these elements to the rest of the MELiSSA loop. A full nitrogen balance at habitat level will have to be achieved; on one hand, sufficient N 2 will be needed to maintain atmospheric pressure at a proper level and on the other, enough mineral nitrogen will have to be provided to the plants to ensure biomass production. From a plant nutrition point of view, we will need to evaluate whether the flux of nutrients reaching the hydroponic system will enable the production of nutrient solutions able to sustain a wide variety of crops. We will also have to assess the nutrient use efficiency of these crops and how that efficiency might be increased. Techniques and sensors will have to be developed to grow the plants, considering low levels or the total absence of gravity, the limited volume available to plant growth systems, variations in plant needs, the recycling of nutrient solutions, and eventually the ultimate disposal of waste that can no longer be used.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None.
(Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier B.V.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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