Nobuhiro Orita

Development of Water Recovery Demonstration System for Further Manned Space Exploration

For further manned space exploration, one critical issue is source recycling, especially water recovery. JAXA is approaching to prepare for an on-orbit demonstration with the development of the water recovery system by 2015. Based on the current situation in ISS, the processing objects are urine and condensate water generated by crew. Specific and technical examinations of the water recovery system demonstration have been conducted. Comparison and examination of various methods, such as reverse osmosis membrane, photocatalytic oxidation, electrolysis and electrodialysis were conducted. Consequently, electrolysis and electrodialysis took the leading role in this water recovery demonstration system.

Determination and characterization of reversed-phase bonded ligands by chemical cleavage with aqueous hydrofluoric acid

A simple and rapid method for the determination and characterization of chemically bonded ligands on reversed-phase packing materials is described. The method consists of cleavage with aqueous concentrated hydrofluoric acid and analysis of the reaction product by GC, NMR and mass spectrometry. It is confirmed from (13)C-NMR spectra that the structure of the bonded ligand is not altered by aqueous hydrofluoric acid. Several commercial reversed-phase packing materials have been analysed by mass spectrometry and because the cleavage reaction proceeds quantitatively, the alkylsilyl groups used are completely converted into the corresponding fluoride derivatives. In the proposed method the cleavage reaction is so fast that the determination takes only 15 min for the steps prior to the chromatographic and spectrometric analyses. The relative standard deviation is 3-4%.