Cold Trap Smoke Eater

A spacecraft fire is particularly hazardous because in addition to the hazardous gaseous and aerosol combustion products that are introduced into the cabin environment, a fire can damage not only the equipment that is the source of the fire but also the systems adjacent to it and poses a serious risk to crew health and safety. Having effective post-fire clean-up equipment and techniques is necessary to remove harmful contaminants and return to a safe cabin atmosphere.

A cold trap smoke eater, based on the cold trap filter concept, will be developed under this task to provide a portable emergency response device to quickly remove smoke particles and toxic gases from the environment following a fire in the cabin. It will pull in the smoke-filled air, capture the harmful smoke particles, condense harmful VOCs, and exhaust cool and purified the air back into the cabin. The design of the smoke eater entails various capturing stages and mechanisms to prevent clogging and enhance the collection efficiency and containment of smoke particles. With the addition of sorbent filter stage, it can remove harmful combustion derived gases such as CO and CO2.

The smoke eater will be deployed and powered up shortly after the fire has been contained or extinguished and operated until the cabin air has been deemed safe to breath. Most of the capturing stages will be designed and optimized for low air resistance resulting in low power consumption and longer life operation. The final design will be compact and ergonomic to facilitate its use by the crew.

A cold trap design has the possibility to exceed or complement the performance of other smoke eaters, specifically HEPA-based smoke-eaters which are prone to rapid clogging. Prior testing of a prototype for a Plasma Pyrolysis Assembly (PPA) application producing carbon/soot effluent was demonstrated with > 40% collection efficiency. The proposed design will serve as a pre-filter to capture the bulk mass of smoke particles down to the smallest sizes. 

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