Tesis doctoral de Alexandra Masot Mata
The melissa project (microbiological ecological life support system alternative) of the european space agency (esa) is an artificial ecosystem conceived as a tool to study and develop technology for a future biological life support system required for long term manned space missions. The fact that the melissa project is formed by several independent organizations of different countries made possible that part of the experimental work of this thesis was carried out in the melissa pilot plant (mpp) located at universitat autí²noma de barcelona (spain) and the controlled environmental systems research facility (cesrf) located at university of guelph (canada). based on the principle of an aquatic ecosystem, melissa aims to produce food, fresh water and oxygen from organic wastes (inedible biomass, faeces, urine and co2) using the combined activity of several microorganisms and higher plants, which colonize five interconnected compartments. The main contribution of this thesis is in the engineering of the photosynthetic compartments of the melissa loop. These photosynthetic compartments consist of a continuous photobioreactor for the culture of arthrospira sp., And a number of sealed higher plant chambers. The first arthrospira reactor has been already built and is in operation at the mpp. This work is contributing to an increase in the knowledge on its operation and characterization. While the higher plant chamber (hpc) is still in the construction phase, the work of this thesis focuses on the collection of basic data for the culture of beet and lettuce. These data are then used in the design of the hpc prototype, which will be built and integrated within the mpp. Finally, the work evaluates the impact of the integration of these two compartments in the complete system, using a static mass balance model for assessing the nitrogen, co2 and o2 balances. particularly, the work has been structured in the following three main units. unit i – arthrospira compartment (ci
Datos académicos de la tesis doctoral «Engineering photosynthetic systems for bioregenerative life support«
- Título de la tesis: Engineering photosynthetic systems for bioregenerative life support
- Autor: Alexandra Masot Mata
- Universidad: Autónoma de barcelona
- Fecha de lectura de la tesis: 28/06/2007
Dirección y tribunal
- Director de la tesis
- Francesc Gódia Casablancas
- Tribunal
- Presidente del tribunal: carles Sol? ferrando
- Francisco Javier Medina díaz (vocal)
- Santiago Esplugas vidal (vocal)
- pilar Fontanet ferrussola (vocal)