THE CULTURE OF CHLORELLA VULGARIS WITH HUMAN URINE IN MULTIBIOLOGICAL LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM EXPERIMENTS

THE CULTURE OF CHLORELLA VULGARIS WITH HUMAN URINE IN MULTIBIOLOGICAL LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM EXPERIMENTS

© LiMing, LiuHong, TongLing, FuYuming, HuEnzhu
© Государственный музей истории космонавтики им. К.Э. Циолковского, г. Калуга
Секция "К.Э. Циолковский и проблемы космической медицины и биологии"
2010 г.

The Integrative Experimental System (IES) was established as a tool to evaluate the relationship of the subsystems in Bioregenerative Life Support System, and Multibiological Life Support System Experiments (MLSSE) have been conducted in IES. The IES consists of a higher plant chamber, an animal chamber and a plate photo bioreactor (PPB) which cultivated lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.), silkworm (Bombyx Mori L.) and microalgae (Chlorella vulgaris), respectively.

As an important candidate species in the BLSS, microalgae are drawn attention widely all the time due to its high rate of growth, photosynthesis and O2 production. Photobioreactor constructed for microalgae has fast reaction rate and stable running and can control the growth of microalgae to product O2. As a lashup technology in BLSS, the running conditions can be controlled by the photobioreactor to enhance the photosynthesis of microalgae and keep a stable atmosphere in the IES.

In MLSSE, four volunteers took turns breathing the system air through a tube connected with the animal chamber periodically. According to the CO2 concentration in the IES, the automotive control system of the PPB changed the light intensity regulating the photosynthesis of Chlorella vulgaris to make CO2/O2 in the system maintain at stable levels. Chlorella vulgaris grew with human urine by carrying certain amount of alga liquid out of the bioreactor every day with synthetic urine replenished into the system, and O2 was regenerated, at the same time human urine was purified.

Results showed that this IES worked stably and Chlorella vulgaris grew well; The culture of Chlorella vulgaris could be used to keep the balance of CO2 and O2, and the change of light intensity could control the gas composition in the IES; Microalgae culture could be used in emergency in the system, the culture of Chlorella vulgaris could recover to original state in 5 days; 15.6 ml of condensation water was obtained every day by the culture of Chlorella vulgaris; The removal efficiencies of N, P in human urine could reach to 98.2% and 99.5%.