Description: Providing a reliable supply of safe drinking water is a critical requirement for space exploration. Systems that provide recycled, treated water aboard the International Space Station, & that will supply water aboard future spacecraft, are inherently complex and can be susceptible to biofilm formation and microbial contamination. Further, it has been noted that pathogenicity and virulence of microbes can increase in microgravity environments. These factors, along with the high consequence of sickness in the remote space environment, make rapid & reliable methods of detecting microbes at low levels a critical need. Rapid microbiological detection systems have taken dramatic steps forward in the last two decades and today detection of even a single organism is possible in less than one hour. Unfortunately, development of rapid detection methods has far outpaced development of sample concentration techniques, which are necessary to enable detection of low microbial concentrations in drinking water. Currently, without sample concentration, rapid detection techniques alone produce results that are hundreds to thousands of times less sensitive than the minimum desired detection limit for microbial water contaminates. InnovaPrep proposes development of a rapid microbial concentration system designed for use aboard the International Space Station. The system will concentrate microbes from up to 5 Liters of potable water into volumes as small as 200 μL – providing concentration factors as high as 15,000X. It will be based on technologies developed and commercialized by InnovaPrep, but will contain innovations to allow for operation in microgravity. Large volumes of potable water are processed through a hollow fiber membrane filter concentration cell as microbes are captured within the lumen of the fibers. Following capture, the microbes are efficiently eluted using a novel Wet Foam Elution process and then delivered to a rapid detection system for analysis.

Benefits: The Hydrosol Concentrator for microgravity (HC-ug) will be an important tool for improving potable water monitoring for microbial contamination on the International Space Station and other NASA spacecraft. As is noted by Yamaguchi et al in a review of current research on microbial monitoring of crewed habitats in space and by Oubre in a comparison study of real-time PCR platforms, rapid environmental microbial monitoring will be required to enable continued success in long-duration space habitation. Per Table 5.2-4 of SSP 50260, International Space Station Medical Operations Requirements Documents, the US On-orbit Segment of the ISS requires analysis of 30 microbial samples in the first 90 days of a mission. After 90 days an additional two samples is required per month. Further, as noted by Yamaguchi, manned missions to Mars, which may be realized within the next two decades, may further increase the need for rapid, reliable microbial monitoring technologies. Because speed of analysis, instrumentation size, and instrumentation and per sample costs are generally tied to sample size, and because required microbial detection limits for drinking water are extremely low, it is likely that concentration will always be a critical component of any detection method appropriate for this application. The proposed HC-ug system holds significant promise for filling this key component of the rapid microbial detection need for NASA for the foreseeable future.

In the proposed format, the Hydrosol Concentrator for microgravity (HC-ug) will have direct application to the microbial water monitoring needs of the International Space Station and all national and international space agencies and missions. Further, because small sample sizes are generally a requirement of rapid microbial detection systems, and because required microbial detection limits for drinking water are extremely low, this need is not anticipated to decrease in the near future. In addition to the needs of the space agency community, many components of the technology developed in the proposed project will also have application to earth-based microbial water monitoring applications. The small, zero-power format of the HC-μg system will lend itself to development of fieldable concentration devices for applications such as DoD water monitoring needs in austere and remote environments, and to field sampling and analysis for outbreak investigations in remote locations and when sending samples to a laboratory is not acceptable. Water monitoring in developing countries is an important need that could benefit greatly from low-cost, fieldable kits that allow for delivery of a concentrated sample to rapid detection kits. InnovaPrep is already working to identify aligned opportunities within US DoD, the national and international drinking water and water utilities marketplace, world health applications, and recreational and environmental water applications.