Team:Calgary/Process
Process
Our proposed process is shown in Figure 1.
In the first step of the process, astronaut’s feces are collected into a storage tank using a vacuum toilet. Feces are then transferred into another tank and left to ferment for 3 days with bacteria naturally found in human feces to increase the concentration of volatile fatty acids (VFA) that are later consumed by engineered E. coli to produce PHB. Next, the liquid containing VFA is separated from solid particles using centrifugation followed by filtration. The resulting liquid containing VFA is then passed to another storage tank. From there, VFA are added to a fermenter inoculated with PHB-producing E. coli. Lastly, produced PHB is extracted from the liquid harvest stream. Produced PHB can be used in Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) 3D printer without additional processing.
Applied Design
