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64393.jpg=The Water Recovery System on the ISS has led directly to huge advances in helping people all around the world drink clean water! Photo by UK Dept. for International Development|91435.jpg=Floating in space still makes you thirsty! Because scientists on the ISS are able to recycle and recover water, they have plenty to drink. Photo by NASA|75824.jpg=Water can look clean to the naked eye, but what can be hidden are disease-causing microbes like these cholera bacteria.|26343.jpg=Do you have something like this in your kitchen? This complex "appliance" is the Water Recovery System on board the ISS. Photo by NASA
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Health Advances
 
Picture a 2-liter bottle filled with water and then add another liter. Health experts recommend drinking 3 liters a day. Now … think about the needs on the International Space Station — multiple people needing water to drink every day and going months without any supplies from Earth. That's just drinking water. (On Earth, we use water for a lot of other things, right?) In fact, one of those "other things" is toilets — which happens to involve something key for water on board the ISS. Yes … urine is used to make drinking water! The ISS is equipped with a water recovery system that treats and filters wastewater and urine for drinking. That may be gross. But this technology has now been used on Earth to provide healthy drinking water to many communities worldwide that don't have access to clean water — helping avoid disease! And maybe someday these systems will lead to more effective ways to purify water so that everyone in the world has access every day to at least 3 liters of clean water to drink!
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Sometimes the crew of the ISS is six people — six scientists who need water to drink. Every day. Even a crew half that size still requires many hundreds of liters of water during the time between the arrival of new payloads. Plus, a liter of water weighs 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds). If the crew on the ISS relied on water coming from Earth, think about how much of a payload's weight would have to go to resupplying H2O!
Fortunately, the ISS has an incredible Water Recovery System (WRS). In fact, the WRS is part of a larger system called the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS), which provides oxygen to breathe, pressurizes many modules to create a comfortable environment, and even detects and suppresses fires! The crew couldn't survive on the ISS for very long without the ECLSS.
However, it's the Water Recovery System that has already made life better for people on Earth. It couldn't happen soon enough. According to UNICEF, approximately 800 million people around the world do not have access to safe, clean drinking water. Combine that with the 2.5 billion people who live without proper sanitation, and it results in the death of 3,000 children each day from poor sanitation and unsafe water.
Typically what makes water unsafe to drink are microbes — microscopic organisms (particularly bacteria). So water might look clean but actually be filled with microbes that cause diseases such as cholera, dysentery, E coli, and Giardiasis. At minimum, drinking water with these microbes can make people sick. At worse, it can lead to death.
Part of the WRS includes a Microbial Check Valve. It's a descriptive name! It controls microbial growth in water without requiring any power. (There are many parts of the world where it's nearly impossible to generate electricity.) Additionally, the purification process adds iodine to the water — iodine is a chemical that promotes brain development, which is particularly important for children whose brains are developing at a rapid rate.
While the Microbial Check Valve is already helping purify water around the world, the Water Recovery System on the ISS is advancing the cause of clean water in other ways. Part of the challenge of clean water is the availability of fresh water. Roughly 70% of the Earth's surface is water, yet the vast majority of it is salt water. People can't drink salt water! As the name suggests, the WRS recovers water — it reuses it with the help of a Water Processor Assembly and a Urine Processor Assembly (yes, urine.)
On board the ISS, the scientists create some wastewater from sinks and showers, as well as some urine. (Scientists have to go to the bathroom, too!) The WRS distills those liquids — separating their components (including some gases) and purifying them in ways that extract H2O and remove any harmful elements. The WRS is like the water cycle on Earth in a very small scale!
As the world's population grows and demand for drinking water continues to increase, people will have to rely more and more on effective ways to reuse wastewater. The technology that has gone into the WRS for the benefit of the scientists aboard the ISS is sure to help advance how we are able to recover and purify water on Earth. It has already helped in purifying existing water supplies, and greater efforts to recover water are on the horizon. Who knows … maybe one day it will be common to recover and reuse urine!
Jennica, Water Everwhere and Now Able to Drink!
I'm a little disgusted thinking about this! Drinking pee? I know. I know. It's treated and purified and everything. This is definitely something that I think will help our planet. I saw this youtube video for some nonprofit that builds wells for people in places like Africa. The video makes the point that a lot of people don't drink clean water and a lot of times they have to go a long way to get it and then carry it home. It shows all these people lined up to get water straight out of a lake. And then it shows these little kids and their mom taking full jugs a long way home in a wagon. They get home and then pour the water in a glass. It's NASTY water! The video ends with some shocking stat about how many people around the world have to do that same kind of thing. Every day. The video was really effective. It has some famous actress in it who's the mom of the kids, but I don't know her name.
H2Onoudidnt, Why Do We Waste SO Much?
We take water for granted in our country. It's ridiculous! We waste so much water. My family thinks I'm obsessed about conserving water. I don't care! I am! They can't waste any water on the space station. It's cool that the technology is already being used on Earth. When can I get one for our house? LOL!
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