Sustainable Innovations tapped to develop NASA rocket fuel

Sustainable Innovations was awarded a 2015 NASA Phase I SBIR to develop its Helium Recovery System (HRS) technology for use at NASA Stennis Space Center (SSC).

NASA SSC’s rocket test programs consume large quantities of hydrogen fuel and helium for fuel line purge gas. The price of helium has increased substantially in recent years, up about 50% since 2000.

Currently, waste gas streams are sent to flare stacks to be combusted or vented, resulting in a large loss of valuable helium and hydrogen gas. Therefore, interest in finding an efficient and economical method of helium recovery has never been greater. The HRS is able to remove and purify hydrogen from a mixed stream of gasses, leaving behind high-value helium. The system then purifies the recovered helium and compresses it to high pressure for further use.

In 2014, a prototype unit was successfully delivered by Sustainable Innovations to NASA SSC to separate a hydrogen/helium stream as well as purify and compress the product gases under a prior SBIR Phase II award.

The heart of the HRS is a system platform under commercial development by Sustainable Innovations, termed H2RENEW. The H2RENEW is an electrochemical system that separates and compresses hydrogen using Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) technology. The H2RENEW is currently being developed for industrial applications, including metals and electronics processing. The ability to recover both pure hydrogen and pure helium from mixed waste gas streams adds further value to the HRS.

Sustainable Innovations’ newly awarded Phase I SBIR program will establish a new fundamental cell design for the HRS having the capability to separate at least twice the gas of previous designs. Ultimately, the NASA SSC HRS will be able to recapture >98% of the hydrogen and helium currently combusted and/or released to the atmosphere as waste.