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>> The supercritical water mixture experiment is an
experiment where we take a very dilute solution of water
and salt and we want to look at how the salt is going
to precipitate once it goes into that supercritical state.
>> Now, supercritical water is which is neither liquid nor gas
at it happens at a very high pressure like 220 atmospheres
and temperature in excess of 370 degrees.
>> The reason why we do it in space is we want
to avoid the settling that occurs in one G
and this way we are able to look
at the second order transport phenomena in space
without settling affects you would get on ground.
>> The ultimate objective of this experiment is
to understand supercritical water oxidation
in a space environment where there is no gravity and use
that actually for waste management
and long duration space missions.
>> This technology is ideal for the NASA exploration program
because it allows us to treat just about any kind
of wet waste stream that you would encounter
on an extended mission where you have to use every resource,
reclaim every resource that you bring up to sustain life.
>> And what it does is it basically reduces everything
to water and CO2 and even things like foam which has a lot
of chlorinated compounds and stuff.
Either they dissolve and you know,
they do not release chlorine and those types of things
in this process in dissolves all
of these chloride compounds either into salts
or into weak acids which can be treated very easily.
>> So, part of the work I do is taking the images we get off the
station and using image analysis techniques on the computer
to calculate the volume of salt that's actually precipitating
during the experimental runs for that application
for a scientific purpose.
>> The salts are the things that cause a problem.
Everything else dissolves.
So to get the salts out, to figure out how can we treat
or remove the salt where does it accumulate are there some
techniques that we can employ, so it doesn't foul
up the reactor or doesn't you know,
cause corrosion of the reactor.
Those are the types of things that we want to understand
from the supercritical water mixture experiment.
>> I knew from Mike that there were particles generated
in the process and he described how they dissipate
and they sometimes, the view gets very cloudy and he knows
that there are a lot of particles there and I suggested
that those particles be analyzed.
I don't think anybody's every done that before.
So, this is going to be the first characterization
of soot generated in supercritical water.
I did my PhD at Washington University in St. Louis
and they have an aerosol department
in the energy environmental and chemical engineering area.
And they are very good at characterizing materials.
And so I knew that would be the ideal partner for looking
at the soot from a hydrothermal flame.
>> The sponsorship and the partners
on this experiment are multifaceted actually.
Our direct sponsorship, our funding support comes
from the Space Life and Physical Sciences division
at NASA headquarters and this this is an international
collaboration with the French Space Agency.
And then the University
of Bordeaux also gives us scientific support.
We are partnering with Professor Yves Garrabos a prominent
scientist in this field along with Carole Lecoutre.
>> Now for long duration space missions, like a mission
to Mars is like 1000 days, minimum.
So the amount of waste a crew of four or six astronauts is going
to generate is tremendous.
Now there are planetary protections regulations
and so forth we can't just dump the waste on Mars and come back,
so we have to treat it and then it'll be very useful
to recycle it so that we can you know,
reuse and reduce the amount of supplies that we take up.
>> What excites me the most
about this experiment is just the wide range
of application this could be used for.
It's really quite exciting.
It's relatively an untapped technology and it fits
with a lot of current social problems that we,
that we're having at the moment.
>> Supercritical water oxidation,
I mean we can treat stuff you know, without causing all
of these hazardous emissions.
You know, everything is you know, comes out either
as you know, water or CO2 which can be sequestered or you know,
it comes out as salts or weak acids
which we can treat very easily.
And so you know, it just reduces the amount of pollution
that you're going you know, to look at.