Destiny C02 Scrubber SPOILERS/Spec SGU S1

[escyos]

someone mentioned where did they get the water for the scrubbers from, how about from destiny's water reserves, we know they have them, there are showers being used in the next ep

[Giantevilhead]

another mentioned this above, however I want to ask this again.

What on the ship could be putting out CO2?
items that the show mentioned so far.
1. We don't know the exact launch date but we do know the ship is very old. its FTL drives are apparently something unknown before, and quite fast from scenes we have seen. So its safe to say that this ship thousands of years old.

2. Dr. Rush said that the Ancients were never on the ship. If you believe that or not is up to you. Dr. Rush is that type of person that lies for a reason or to benifit himself. I don't see the reason in lieing about that, however I'm not in his head so i cant be sure. this also does not preclude other peoples getting to the ship. however for a very old ship the parts that our crew have explored show a very clean ship. no debri. no signs of past habitation. we have not seen self cleaning functions on the ship, but they could exist.

So again What on the ship could be putting out the CO2 that fouled up the scrubbers?

Bacteria.

It should also be noted that the hole in the shuttle wouldn't have just been letting out oxygen, all gases should have been going out. Considering how the atmospheric pressure was not dropping, the Destiny must have some way of creating oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen to maintain the atmosphere. Either that or it has a storage tank.

[K^2]

Bacteria.

Good call.

[thekillman]

dang i feel stupid.


*sigh*

reducing bacteria could ofcourse use it.


i would use calcium carbonate. the massive advantage is, and i tested it with a science programme, that calcium hydroxide is capable of reacting with carbon dioxide in a much higher rate than other alkalines.

this could also mean that the scrubber does simply this:


air flows in, the carbon dioxide dissolves (partially), the calcium hydroxide reacts with the dissolved carbon (because CO2+H2O=H2CO3), the calcium carbonate slowly falls to the bottom, where some filter filters it out and then it goes through a series of mechanisms that turn the calcium carbonate back to calcium hydroxide and carbon and oxygen.

[Jper]

dang i feel stupid.


*sigh*

reducing bacteria could ofcourse use it.


i would use calcium carbonate. the massive advantage is, and i tested it with a science programme, that calcium hydroxide is capable of reacting with carbon dioxide in a much higher rate than other alkalines.

this could also mean that the scrubber does simply this:


air flows in, the carbon dioxide dissolves (partially), the calcium hydroxide reacts with the dissolved carbon (because CO2+H2O=H2CO3), the calcium carbonate slowly falls to the bottom, where some filter filters it out and then it goes through a series of mechanisms that turn the calcium carbonate back to calcium hydroxide and carbon and oxygen.

Indeed this is what I was saying. Or at least the basic idea... Maybe you explained it better.
Although I think you mean you would use Calcium Oxide? Isn't Calcium Oxide what can bind the CO2?
Anyway, that's what I thought after reading the Wikipedia page here.

I think that part of the episode's story was rather good. Well thought out.

[morrismike]

another mentioned this above, however I want to ask this again.

What on the ship could be putting out CO2?
items that the show mentioned so far.
1. We don't know the exact launch date but we do know the ship is very old. its FTL drives are apparently something unknown before, and quite fast from scenes we have seen. So its safe to say that this ship thousands of years old.

2. Dr. Rush said that the Ancients were never on the ship. If you believe that or not is up to you. Dr. Rush is that type of person that lies for a reason or to benifit himself. I don't see the reason in lieing about that, however I'm not in his head so i cant be sure. this also does not preclude other peoples getting to the ship. however for a very old ship the parts that our crew have explored show a very clean ship. no debri. no signs of past habitation. we have not seen self cleaning functions on the ship, but they could exist.

So again What on the ship could be putting out the CO2 that fouled up the scrubbers?

The universe abhors o2 (it's an oxidizer) and it cannot exist for a long period of time without some sort of regeneration process. The real question is why there was any o2 at all when they arrived.

[morrismike]

dang i feel stupid.


*sigh*

reducing bacteria could ofcourse use it.


i would use calcium carbonate. the massive advantage is, and i tested it with a science programme, that calcium hydroxide is capable of reacting with carbon dioxide in a much higher rate than other alkalines.

this could also mean that the scrubber does simply this:


air flows in, the carbon dioxide dissolves (partially), the calcium hydroxide reacts with the dissolved carbon (because CO2+H2O=H2CO3), the calcium carbonate slowly falls to the bottom, where some filter filters it out and then it goes through a series of mechanisms that turn the calcium carbonate back to calcium hydroxide and carbon and oxygen.

Individual caco3 molecules are small enough to be a victim of brownian motion (would not settle). Just like the ocean this system would contain billions of floating arogonite microneedles (I forget what they are called) per gallon of liquid. Get a big air handler with 10000 cfm of airflow, scrub the air with a mist of the Ca++ rich solution, run this thru a submicron filtration system to remove dirt (since the air wash removes particulate - the black crap was spaceship dust), recirculate this thru a reactor where protons (H+) are injected to form bicarb which degrades into co2 and water, run thru a ozone or hydroxyl free radical (h202 with special uv lamps turns into OH free radical) reactor, run thru a stripper operated at a vacuum to scavange the CO2, run the co2 thru another reactor to crack off the C molecule (heat, radiation, electricity - I'm sure people capable of ftl are pretty good at this sort of stuff), if desired make 02 from electrolysis and reject both the h2 and co2 to space. repeat. You've got a system which can efficiently maintain life support for hundreds of people and was developed in the 50s.

Everything has been thinking way too hard on this. The destiny uses generation 0 submarine technology for its scrubber.

[thekillman]

The real question is why there was any o2 at all when they arrived.

the ship powered up when the gate dialled, so the lifesupport probably came on. being so old, it couldnt handle 80 people at once, so it overworked and failed.