SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Critical need for a non-toxic, regenerative carbon dioxide (CO2) scrubber material with enhanced scrubbing capacities and safety for rebreather applications. The current state-of-the-art (SOA) scrubber material for rebreather is soda lime. Soda lime is highly toxic, has low CO2 capacity, and is non-regenerative requiring an entire logistics chain. Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) is developing a novel, non-toxic high-performance CO2 scrubber for rebreather applications with enhanced performance compared to that of soda lime and regenerative capabilities with minimum performance degradation in between subsequent cycles. Successful development of the proposed technology will result in longer mission duration, increased mission safety, and decreased logistic and cost burden. PSI’s approach builds upon SOA industrial CO2 scrubbing techniques and PSI’s expertise in sorbent technologies. PSI demonstrated the core feasibility of the proposed approach in the Phase I program. The Phase II program will further mature the innovative technology to achieve TRL +6 for comprehensive testing in a rebreather system under operational conditions.
