over the past decade
NASA's national space technology
laboratories n STL in Bay st. Louis
Mississippi has been doing related
research when people begin living in
space and Disney's Epcot Center in
Florida have adopted research done in
honesty oh by using a plant called the
water hyacinth in their treatment of raw
sewage this commonly the water hyacinth
literally thrives on sewage the plant
has a complex root mass which acts like
a filter bacteria microorganisms that
grow on the root systems break down and
digest the sewage allowing the hyacinth
to absorb nutrients
toxic chemicals and even radioactive
waste the effluent that comes out of
this system which is treated sewage for
a couple of days is of such high quality
that would need only to go through a few
final steps before it is drinkable the
hyacinth dislikes cold water but when in
a warm fire it grows at such a furious
rate that it needs to be harvested on a
regular
once hardships
for animals or shredded and loaded into
a digester for further processing and
the biogas which can be used as a fuel
the city of San Diego's water Utilities
Department has adopted the use of water
hyacinth in a large-scale project to use
plain raw sewage and process it into
drinking water
another plant related water filtration
system recently developed through
research at n SPL is called a rough reed
filter in this case polluted Mississippi
river water passes through granular rock
containing reed plants the roots from
the reeds and a high surface area of the
rocks support bacteria that break down
pollutants and purify water since weeds
can tolerate cold weather this system
works very well in regions where water
hyacinths can't grow the latest research
at n STL has been with a spider plant
system that purifies air along the same
lines as the rock reed filter does for
water air is purified as it's drawn
through the spider plant interacting
with activated carbon and the plants
root system of n STM now this is an
exciting new technology that's emerging
and we're looking at now it not only
allow fewer plants inside a home to
purify the air but it has tremendous
applications for our future space
station as we look towards developing a
space station already moonbase others so
these technology is evolving from
aquatic plants to common house plants
we're beginning to put this technology
together for practical simplified
everyday use with the ultimate
long-range goal of perfecting a clothes
ecological life-support system for a
space application via the
movies are spaced